Christmas Special 2013
by KING FELIX
Summary: Christmas. Peace and (m)ucking to all Mankind, yeah? And Twitter 2235? No, I didn't make up the concept. Check out 'Think Like a Mountain' by Paul Chadwick.


Christmas Special 2013

'When a blind man and one who sees are both together in the darkness, they are no different from one another. I am the light which exists in the light, I am the remembrance of the Providence, that I might enter the inside of Hades'.

- The Nag Hammadi.

As a last little trick to put the whole thing off, Ned Ashcroft declined a cab ride and approached the launch site on foot, past sheer frontages of fairy lights on plastic nerves, swollen Carebear stars, wicker deers that looked like they were puffing their cheeks after arguing with a housewife. Lots of streetlight-mounted, fibre-glass fartdreams designed by Nia Samuel-Johnson, working as Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka, smiling at you, then smiling a little too hard, then trying to kill you. Christmas Time: men in sandals with swollen ginger eyes silenced about the scourge of light pollution, just for a week or two. But actually the stars above were still perfectly distinct, and is it going to be snowy this year? No, just ambient.

"Hello!", he breezed to the suave receptionist, as though there was a corner of her glacial imagination that didn't _hate_ zietstyle hacks. When meeting a beautiful stranger, some men lust for sex -fine, because the true guilt lies in the soulful need for bonhomie. Today, more than anything: a celestial queen making eye-contact with a Sugar-Puff-tooth opium scribe. She gave Ashcroft his journo name tag, plus a vicelike smile, then quickly moved her attention to a man in suit top, voluminous trousers, eyes like laptop running lights. Next along was the interview with the health officer, who clearly didn't believe Ashcroft's promise that he'd been off the booze for the two weeks requisite to go into space. It's fun, however, to lie into childlike eyes. About the existence of Father Christmas. The desirability of Apple's latest ponce-pad. The Secret Santas given and received, as if the people in your office might suddenly become, at best, bloodstained Tim Roth and Harvey Keitel exchanging £3.50 bottles of wine before the cops burst in on Christmas Eve Eve.

It was just -everything. The slice of your licence fee the BBC uses to offer up festive premieres that have already reached saturation point on Sky and the CEX bargain shelves as early as five years ago. Now was the time of year to either get drunk or feel jaded. That Ashcroft had been chosen as the only underground journalist to take part in Britain's inaugural public space-flight hardly lifted his spirits.

Long, awkward arms now carrying a duffel of astro-tat, he loafed through to the boarding lounge where soon the NX _Postgate_ would zoom off to Planet Moon carrying the historic first contingent of space-tourists. And the minute he was mingling with the other VIPS, his expression -tin foil thumbed over an incredulous gargoyle. He glared at his fellow passengers and the article started to write itself. On the shorthand tablet screen, the program snap-fitted his scrawls into legible sentences. The main obstacle, always, was keeping the buttonless cuffs of his grime-resistant shirt from getting caught between stylus and screen.

_'The Rise of the Space Idiots. By Ned Ashcroft._

_'Going to Planet Moon, if only they were going forever. Faces propped with Dali sticks into naff-wholesome grins, pretending people care, nowadays without even making the effort of showing off in the Big Brother House. They've emerged from nowhere, the ultimate in yawning Sunday supplement features - The Space Idiots. Pioneers? Of stupidly-popular Yewjtube videos and New Scientist articles barely five hundred words long. Professor Bris Hadfield, guitar in hand, hoping once again to be the vlogcast romance of hormonal science teachers, sitting in front of a tiny camera ruining Bowie ballads in the style of James Blunt's sports bra. Dame Doreen Laree, elected to become a member of parliament after campaigning against innercity seagulls, her young son having had his left hand mangled by a herring gull that looked like Enoch Powell. The seagulls conquered. All the problems of society, conquered. Go to space, then, with your jacket that makes you look like a carnival sausage, with your boot polish make-up and Ascot bonnet an origami hint for any passing Bladerunners._

_'The forty-year-old atheist poet, always shifty like your brother-in-law trying to work out how to reject your insurance claim without hurting your feelings. The bloke who designed the space station washing machine. Olympic winner and inane advert star Jessican Benis. The small child who they say won a 'design a...' competition, but really only succeeded by making his manga face go a millimetre cross-eyed and farting out a charming smile through wonkoid teeth. _

_'And the main headliner - look there he is, Sir Bon Deglof; the face of a surly-affable teenager in a sudden explosion of soot-stained flesh. Looking, bizarrely, like a less interesting and more evil version _of _Ray Sahetapy in _The Raid_. Of course he's going to be the first Irishman in space! What are you talking about? Why wouldn't he be? Working class people are allowed to be elaborate -all his life he's been the king. Why wouldn't the son of a traveling towel salesman care passionately about Ethiopia? Why wouldn't he set up a TV production company based on jovial pub games, with presenters trying so hard to be New York punks when really they're just wah-wah-mouths with sub-Alan-Bennett observations of terraced house, Sunday roast chattering? 'Tell me why I don't like Tuesday?', you should like it quite a bit, Sir Bon; you've dined out on it for thirty years'._

The space tourists walked smoothly across the gantry and into an antechamber of the dull white spaceship. Ashcroft was momentarily concerned that there were passengers who he hadn't properly deconstructed. For instance, the so-called 'second' Irishman in space, the teenage-girl-faced 'comedian' Ned Byrne. Byrne, who, if you listened to his observations for a thousand years or so, might eventually say something pithy, which, in turn, over the course of eons, might evolve into something that was actually meaningful or _funny. _As it was, Ashcroft made a particularly dismissive scrawl on his data-pad, which the program wrongly converted into, 'Ned Byrne - hunt'.

Now the main seating area of the ship presented a new problem; the least annoying person to sit beside. Actually; Forbes McCallister. Ashcroft had laughed quite a bit when, on Newsnight, the grand old trickster had simply settled back into his chair and laughed while Peter Tatchell and Jim Davidson had venomed each other to a stalemate. Also, there was a chance, a slim chance, he might have a small bottle of liquor hidden under his demob hat.

He didn't.

After a beep-punctuated quarter of an hour, the thruster-slide holding the rocketship was raised at an angle. The Space Arkala had stated that the artificial gravity wouldn't engage until they'd passed through the Earth's atmosphere, and so Ashcroft resigned himself to staring forlornly at his knees and fag-stained nails. A couple of times every week, the previous night's boozing of tequila-rum-Becks wouldn't produce quite so much of a hangover, just because his belly had adjusted. There was something in the spaceyard piston-hoists, however, which stirred up the embers from nothing, the cacky-black whining at the corners of his mind. He stared through the porthole at the boarding lounge Christmas decs. These days, you can either have traditional, vaguely cheap-looking decorations, or you can have Downton Abbey. Except here they'd chosen a middle-way: icey department store dangles. He stared at the fierce-glowing reds, the yellows, the greens.

"I hope we're back by Christmas Eve", croaked Forbes. "My daughter and her mousey boyfriend are having an engagement party".

"That's something to look forward to", suggested Ashcroft.

"Not really. I loathe them. But it's something to hold on to".

Weird-fiery rockets heaved and, with the clutch depressed, the NX Postgate cleaved up into the muted sky, still Chistmassy. They cleared then coasted in a sharp dividing line of cream clouds, granting the brief illusion of being back on the ground with sharp yellow streetlights swishing into view at Ashcroft's porthole. Soon he realized they were just the tips of the Postgate's stubby wings cranking at a streamline angle to carry them onwards-upwards over russet-green continents. He crinkled his eyes as the curved horizon took on a ring of crazy blue, some JJ Abrams flaring, a neat swarm of stars. Bris Hadfield slipped free from his harness and took out a cheap-looking guitar. There followed an acoustic, mealy-mouthed version of 'Merry Christmas Everyone', which made Ashcroft want to immediately find Shakin' Stevens, tell him he loved him, and apologize for all the dullness of modern culture.

Under his breath, speaking sardonically, "Captain, I'm receiving an urgent subspace communique from Starfleet Command: you're a tw-t".

Forbes didn't laugh at this as Ashcroft had expected. It was entirely possible he'd never seen Star Trek.

Dame Laree lapped it up, as did Sir Deglof, though it was too much like hard work to actually sing along, his oversized hands just -thumping- as a giant gorilla chimp. Ashcroft wagged his jaw and sneered. Come the part of the song where there was usually the warm harmonies of the backing singers -a new kind of hum came along. It continued, it got louder; it missed all the cues of the song.

While the bones in Ashcroft's arms started to shake, he kept his gaunt head motionless the better to listen to the pilot's tannoy.

"Ladies and Gentlemen", no doubt smiling coyly, "we apologize for the turbulence".

Eyes narrowed in a panic-wise intuition, Ashcroft wondered, "How can you have turbulence in outer space?"

Throughout, there was a high-heartrate chatter, which could just about be identified as a rhythm. Sharing his sister's flat in 1992, when they'd both been struggling students, there'd been that certain all-nighter when they'd sat together in the warmest room of the house. They'd worked so hard to finish their dissertations on time, hers on corporate misconduct, his on the history of gonzo reportage. But where Clara's sudden burst of effort was due to her perfectionism and commitment, his was due to drunken laziness. Or something more sophisticated but just as bad. He recalled her arched spine against the table, the way she'd now-and-then use him as a living thesaurus, the way her fingers had flown over the giant nineties laptop. She was merely angry, rather than livid, when she discovered the seven unwashed socks which he'd painstakingly draped on her back as she sat working. Probably they'd kept her warm.

There was a further shudder from the fuselage. No one made a fuss because seemingly they were too dull-minded. The shaking and the post-atmospheric whinneying grew a lot more pronounced, leading Dame Laree to grapple her tiny hat like Oliver Hardy having seen a thing, leading Sir Bon to drawl out to the cockpit, "All these people are going to die. For fox sake, torn us around and take us back to 'Orth". On TV, whenever he was making an impassioned speech about Africa, he always looked as though his eyelids were closed, his pupils chalked-on by a mischievous hypnotist. Now he was trapped on an out-of-control space-liner, they looked just the same, but with the accent on an old, grey minotaur obsessed with death. Rushing down towards a beautifully grey Earth, Ashcroft stared at the spherical wing lights just beyond his porthole and thought, even with the filaments dead, it seemed they were still illuminated somehow. The light drawn from a beautiful winter atmos. Blue? Green?

"No need to worry, I expect", rasped Forbes. "They put me in a simulator in Kent. I spilt my Oloroso, but that was about the worst that happened".

Panicked eyes spread wide at nothing. "It feels serious".

"Actually, yes", Forbes admitted in his ever-sleepy croak. "These things always go wrong. I should think the whole blasted roof will get burnt off, and we'll slowly be shredded by huge slavers of wreckage".

Imminent death or no, the old lord chose to remove himself by pulling out an antiquated CD Walkman. His choice of album -bizarrely, since he was a right wing Tory peer- 'I say, I say, I say' by Erasure.

Why hadn't he sat next to Helen Skelton? Even now she was holding the hand of the competition winner, as much, it seemed, to reassure herself than him. It led to a single thought in Ashcroft's mind, 'I could be that small boy'. A lazy sonic bump coincided with a metallic scrawling all along the hull as things grew truly violent. Apparently Forbes had quite a gift of foresight; while it was still in a forward-facing direction, this was just a crazy happenstance; the NX Postgate was indeed coming apart. To be in such a small and distinctive carriage, then have the main elements of that carriage slowly ripped away -the only option was to go blank. Let your mind be swallowed up in the ballet of tusking metal gouges and intense shakes. Ashcroft clung to the idea of still being in a gangway of plush seats while the increasing reality was a cavernous tumble-drier making barely a hundredth of a revolution -still using enough energy to clean all the linen of Bristol. It amazed him, in some gasping section of his brain, that he was able to peacefully watch the fancy welding of the outer shell get peeled away, gently -

Ultra-sudden jerks wrenched sections of the forward cabin into disarray. It was hard to find joy even in the yelps of Ned Byrne because Ashcroft himself was in the same death-panic. Dame Laree was sucked into the void as if her whole body was as lightweight as her bonnet. Sir Deglof looked as if he was finally trying to think up a new chart single. But it was far too late.

Vertigo, breathlessness, a tornado of ambient air curved across Ashcroft's scrunched face, really no more than a vehicle for red-hot shrapnel specks and crazy whisps of fire. He lost consciousness twice. The echo of a violent explosion suggested a final, pro-climactic death -or perhaps not.

The sudden stillness impressed him quite a bit, while also making him want to spew. Impressive, also, that what remained of the main fuselage was on a level, forward-facing, narrowly. He was granted a view of the sky above, grey clouds with a nice edge of blue, well-separated against impenetrable storm fronts. Not enough to cancel a church fete. Not enough to cancel a duck race, a fun run, a Corinthia balcony interview with David Davis Hitler. On the left-hand side of the aisle were empty seats, just beside him, then far ahead, with spilled handbags and food cartons probably scattered by corpses only narrowly out of eyeshot.

Forbes seemed to be staring at him.

"Forbes?"

Forbes seemed to stare.

As shock set in, Ashcroft struggled to understand in the slightest.

Granted his eyes were twinkly enough, yet the old lord was motionless. Pleading, as if he was saying it for the first time, "Forbes!", and never with the possibility it was a joke-on-joke. Ashcroft was merely desperate. Nothing was yielded.

Some b-d of a mechanism in his harness refused to click open. After a whimper, a Tony Hancock trumpet of terror, there were still no ideas about how to proceed. His right arm was broken; that much was bang-on. Lefty was free to move, yet it felt awkward because what space it had was ghostly, enclosed by a ganglia of coolant pipes that had been ripped low from the ceiling. He tried to call for help, which did nothing except swirl around the idea that he was the sole survivor.

An anticipation of firetrucks and ambulances racing to help them, like presents on a childhood Christmas Morning, kept him tense in his chair, through minutes and minutes - until he reasoned that they'd probably come down in some remote wilderness of Russia or Canada. No sounds at all came from the horizon, leaving it all to the low creaks and hissings marauding, circling, toying with his sweaty brain. He tried so desperately to reach his numb left hand to disconnect the b-d harness buckle.

Dead Forbes McAllister continued to work his crazy magic. A wise old Tory minister staring Crowley-esque at a Greenpeace protester -making the guy look stupid in front of the world's TV cameras. It was maddening; Ashcroft's left arm struggled, barely able to reach the harness buckle across his ribs, let alone go on a mission to try and close the eyes of his dead comrade.

Yet -Ashcroft narrowed his eyes. One thing his left arm _did_ have was access to the torn-down coolant pipes. He grasped the ceiling end of the metre-long section and wrenched it free. Bracing the outer edge, he bent it slightly, angled the tip across his chest, then up towards the mad, staring eyes of McCallister. With painstaking skill, he rolled the tip across the right eyelid. It wasn't easy but it was effective. The only problem: the tip was still alive with purple coolant gel. Suddenly Forbes was wearing Siouxsie Sioux eye-shadow.

A gravelly-voiced Rastafarian robot shouted, 'Noooooooo!' - Ashcroft jumped out of his skin, then realized it was just the 'send' notification of a mobile phone. The mobile phone of one of the hipsters who were watching him through the broken porthole, filming him, enjoying every second.

Laughter. "Ah, that is well plebgate!"

Said another, "Nice one. Keeping the style fresh even for the afterlife -awesome mucking death-proofing, yeah?"

Juddering mouthfuls of air, because there were no words to be had, Ashcroft struggled to make a connection with the bizarre gang of trendies.

_"Call an ambulance"._

"An Ambulance Bacardi. Die hard, drink hard -afterlife afterparty!" -as if they were commenting on the partying of some loveable Downey Jnr.-style rogue.

"Please. Who are you idiots?"

"We were just playing Celery Santas on the bypass when your vintage came down. You almost hit a cow; it was hilarious. Are you the captain?"

Every inch of Ashcroft's body felt tingly and bone-dry. Why would the captain be seated in the thoroughfare of passenger chairs? They _were_ idiots.

Hanging over the cusp of the next seat was a section of air-con plating, unbelievably thick, nonetheless torn up by the frenzy. Ashcroft stared at the raw edge and wondered. With his blessed left arm, he hauled the torso-size plate around and laboriously moved the broken edge to his chest strap. He started to slice. He continued the effort even when -at last- he heard the approach of distant emergency vehicles.

In the jagged mountain of a smashed window, he caught his reflection. His hair had been straggled out until it resembled Einstein or Ace Ventura, plus it was completely grey from hull-foam. Debris titbits underfoot made his eyes flicker as he edged toward the open world, a kind of prairie. Beyond was a lavishly-lit city. He wondered -could it be Las Vegas; it was the only explanation, though the neon colours seemed a little too respectable. Strange, also, that the approaching emergency sirens were so hard to identify. They sounded like conventional doppler-coasting klaxons, but when he picked out the black shape on the horizon, it was at least twenty feet above the ground. A low-flying air ambulance? The city council must have laid-back flight regulations.

He waited for the intercept. He ignored the insane question from one of the trendies, "Where're you from? Did you know Lady Gaga? What about John McCririck?"

Now the pain from his broken arm was well-and-truly at work in his nerves; it brought a sweat all the way across his shoulders, which he hoped might be counteracted by the winter air. Alas, the air was unseasonably mild. There was barely any wind at all, leaving the stubby grass at his feet to pick out the motionless silver of the moonlight.

In the high atmos, far away, there was a redness that hinted at a desert in the sky, turbulent and placid both at the same time. Ashcroft drifted around with his temples drawn tight in consternation. Once again he jumped out of his skin as a figure appeared at his shoulder, a paramedic in sophisticated headgear which seemed to have been modeled on Judge Dredd.

"Happy Christmas".

Ye-eahhh. Ashcroft wasn't sure he was ready for sardonic paramedics, at least, not in the terrible circumstances, not on top of the lurking hipsters.

"I think I have a broken arm", 'think' nothing.

The doc proceeded to heal the fracture with a sophisticated set of pulsing rings, which Ashcroft had never met before.

"Are you -", he wondered, "-from Bupa?"

The futuristic quad-helicopters made casual sweeps of the specky wreckage mounds. The goldie lookin' trendies made casual circuits on their tiny bikes. Along with the paramedic with his miraculous rings, they were joined in the glowing diorama by a man-plus firefighter. "That's it. No further survivors".

Ashcroft looked at the line of ravaged portholes, so unbelievably stark like an ancient castle wall.

"S-".

The emergency officers looked at him sharply. He was forced into a bluff, "Such a terrible accident" -rather than the truth of his dispassion, that the aircrash had completely robbed him of any relevance. 'Rise of the Space Idiots' would have to be scrapped. He'd have to write a soulful obituary piece for the 'noble, honourable' Sir Bon Deglof. The old adage might be as true as ever, 'Where were you when Michael Jackson died?', 'Texting a joke about Michael Jackson dying' -yet no one would admit to being in the same room as dying Jacko and then trying to file the joke as a _Guardian Guide _wag-piece.

"So what happens now?", Ashcroft kneeded the bridge of his nose and snarled up his stubble. "Do I have to make a report to the crash investigators?"

The medic ran a tricorder the length of Ashcroft's torso. "Not necessary. This happens all the time".

"Did you know Prince Harry?", asked a hipster.

The fire officer gestured directly up into the night sky. "Up there's the culprit. A Class Two rupture in the Space Time Continuum. Splats down ancient ships and airplanes every other day. You're the third lot today. I'm just sorry all your mates died".

Ashcroft blinked, thinly moved his body like a Muppet. Why weren't there more flames around the broken engine? He pierced his eyes and focused on something else; suddenly it was strangely dark. "What are you talking about? What's a Class Two rupture in Space Time? What am I doing here?"

Said the medic in a quelling voice, "It'll all be explained to you at the Demarcation Centre. Everything's going to be fine, old chum. In the meantime, welcome to the year 2235".

"What? But I'm from the 21st century! I only went into space for ten minutes! It's 2013!"

"Awesome!", said one of the hipsters, the one with the Kid n' Play haircut. "Old Father Time!"

His friends wagged their heads in childish awe. As Ashcroft tried to understand. Then, disbelief at a maximum, he was transposed in a magical swirl of transporter energy. It was Star Trek. It was the dullest episode of a fey Star Trek spin-off, with dour aliens and the main characters impossibly hard to identify with. Still, just for a second, there he was inside a golden tinsel Christmas tree, a whirr of icey tingles, an alcohol-fuelled corner of abstract peace.

_Believe._

"First of all", said the pin-stripe-authority figure of the demarcation clerk, clasping his hands and leaning forward, "Merry Christmas, my name is Apricot Woodbury".

Wondered Ashcroft, "Yeah, why do people keep saying 'Merry Christmas', as if I think it's a thing? As if you'd go into a police station to report a terrorist, and the cop goes, 'Yeah, and it's Halloween! Trick or Treat!'"

The clerk made a face as though he couldn't understand this point of view, not in a thousand years. As per long centuries of everyone's DNA getting swished together in a cross-ethnic mash-up, his hair was creamy black, though it still looked blonde because of the sheeny grooming. And the fact he was a raging geek. "So Mr Ashcroft - what I start by asking any of our time-displaced arrivals is a little about your financial ties. You see, because of the fiscal balancing of our economy, we only allow access to individuals that have a reasonable chance of contributing to our monetary base. I'm afraid temporal welfare tourism has been a big concern in the past few years".

"I actually come from England", said Ashcroft in an arch-flourish of his Leeds drawl.

"But an England that's two-hundred-and-twenty years defunct", The clerk rippled his chin. "Did you have any trust funds or company bonds that might have survived?"

His tone abrupt, "No", thinking_, I had a bank account with two hundred pounds earned from a fence-sitting review of the latest Julian Cope CD. _

The main lounge of the Demarcation Centre was a silver-lit office funneling into individual interview desks, and though it was warm and well-illuminated, there was a strange sensation of being outdoors. At the interview window to the left of Ashcroft was a dainty-looking Conquistador, really nothing at all like _The Fountain_. To his right was a beautiful woman whose hair dated her at the early nineteen twenties. Eyes met; a contemptuous look based on his fag-stained eternal soul hit him like a gunshot. It was annoying, also, how the Conquistador seemed to have built up such an easy rapport with _his_ interviewer. Laughing. Pointing out funny ideas to each other.

"When can I go home?", it was a tentative and gentle question, and to emphasize this, Ashcroft smoothed down his black jeans, softened up his confused-agonized expression. _We're both strangers stuck together in a bureaucracy; we don't really have to deal with each other. C'mon. Make it easy. C'mon. _

The Clerk explained that he could never go home, because time travel to the past was a scientific impossibility.

"It's the year 2325 -and you don't even have time travel yet", withered Ashcroft in his most judgmental tone.

Near-affably, the Clerk said, "The year is 2235, not 2325. And I should be grateful if I were you, Mr Ashcroft. Your country was dying. You came from 2013, just five years before the greatest economic and societal depression the world had ever seen".

"I don't know", Ashcroft flapped his jaw and felt the air on his cavity-ridden back teeth. He took out his phone and brought up a picture of his front room. "In the meantime, I'd still have had five years of eating fried chicken and watching cartoons on my giant TV".

"Is that a Samsung S4?", suddenly Apricot was interested -in his phone?

"Yeah. You about to tell me it's an impossibly rubbishy old antique?"

For once, the Clerk raised his eyebrows. "Actually, that generation of smartphone is considered a design classic. If you like, I can make an instant 4000 Faragecredit payment to your Citizen Account before passing the phone onto a reputable antique dealer -on your behalf?"

"'Faragecredit' -is that your currency, is it? Is 4000 a lot?"

"It's enough", announced the Clerk in a breezy voice, "to pay for three months rent in a modest apartment. But if you chose to also expend it on alcohol or cigarettes, the money would vanish almost over night".

"What makes you think I care about alcohol and fags?", Ashcroft wagged his head.

"I mention it for information purposes".

Ashcroft gave a sickly nod, slid his phone across the shiney desk. "By the way, what kind of a name is 'Apricot'?"

"Now", said the clerk sharply, "do you have any conditions we should enter into the medical records?"

"No!"

"Well, you're very isolated here. Would you like me to see if you have any living descendants I can put you in touch with?"

Ashcroft produced a nice little cringe-smile upon being handed the screengrab of a name and address -his great-to-the-power-ten grandniece 'Kal-Nez Ashcroft'. Just another set of bulbous black eyes to nonsensically wish him 'Merry Christmas'. He placed it in his shirt pocket among the Poundland receipts, the spent matches, the bus stubs.

"So, can I go yet? I want to start my new life. Get adjusted. People from my era, we're very, you know -rough and ready".

Nazi checkpoint freak in. Apricot Woodbury was unconvinced. "I need to issue you a work visa. Can I ask- ", accidentally looking him up and down, "-what you did for a living?"

Ashcroft tried not to mumble. "I was a culture writer".

Don't you know this is the Land of Confusion? "Culture -in the scientific sense?"

"Culture-", he blinked. "Society pundit. Satirizing current fashions. That kinda thing. Are you saying you don't have social or lifestyle magazines in 2225?"

"_2235_", Apricot clasped his hands, clearly talking the businesslike-emotionless route over constant annoyance. "I don't understand the idea. Perhaps we have a difference in semantics. Why would culture or society need to be written about, Mr Ashcroft? We're all part of society. We're all part of culture. Wouldn't it be demeaning to the reader to lecture him on something so universal?"

Ashcroft dipped his eyes. He tried to focus more on the mystery than the despair, washing over him in an aching tide. Then again, no lifestyle writers? At least it meant that there was no futuristic version of Cheryl Healey, genuinely tantalizing you with her one-in-a million eyes, then genuinely horrifying you by making a documentary about a 30 stone teenager with syphilis. Whether pregnant for the sixth or the second time -a bourgeois zombie you might once have fallen in love with.

From his cacky old wallet he produced the faithful laminated card that had swished him thru so many scrapes. "Here's my NUJ membership".

Apricot, he looked for just a fraction of a second. "This expired two hundred and fifteen years ago. And the NUJ no longer exists as an organization. I'm afraid things have changed greatly. In 2017, Lord Leveson outlawed most forms of what you would call journalism -journalists hacking into subjective reality and extrapolating what a private individual might be thinking or planning".

Trying to keep up, Ashcroft sneered. "So the only way anything can be reported is if it's put in a lovely little press release in bullet points? That's sane".

Defending his century with a mild passion, "No, I'm afraid you don't understand. Journalists are still able to cross-reference information into news stories. The problem came with these", he held up Ashcroft's phone. "What Lord Leveson said was, it's obviously abhorrent to hack into someone's phone messages, even if the messages are there in the ether. An inherent weakness in the mobile network was no excuse. Unfortunately, _most _things are in the ether -unconfirmed ideas, unconfirmed plans. It's not right that they should be unprotected".

As if it was a pub chat, Ashcroft put forward, "That's actually b-s, isn't it? If you were a journo walking past a punter's house, and you imagined they might be having a salacious conversation, and you walked as close as you could along the pavement under their window -you're consciously moving your feet in a certain way, right? How is that any different to consciously typing in some numbers to hack a mobile account? It's like those fox hunters who say, 'oh, but the foxes kill all the chickens'. Don't make your chicken pens out of chicken wire, then. Spend thousands of pounds making them a little steel fortress or a robot guard, because that'll still be cheaper, financially and ethically, than twenty toffs in red jackets thinking they own the world".

Apricot said, "I don't understand your argument". Perhaps he really didn't.

Ashcroft frowned. The centre of a solar system. A sun, made of irritation and exasperation; it was cooling, contracting, becoming an ashen husk of mild confusion. "OK. Fine. No more journalists".

"Do you have any other saleable skills?", asked Apricot pointedly.

In utter defeat, Ashcroft said, "No".

"Perhaps a career in advertising?"

Would you like to pose as a geriatrics surgeon and try to tease out varicose veins, as if they're worms, by holding bacon next to them?

Quietly, "No".

Just for a while, Apricot seemed sympathetic, carefully scanning his glittering holo-screen with renewed determination. At either side, the Conquistador and the Roaring Twenties were already at the final form-filling stage, which brought about a feeling of shame, embarrassment, climactic hope. "The nearest thing I can steer you towards, assuming I understand what 'culture writer' is, is an internship at a Trashbat ethernet site".

Sighing, with his eyes, "What's that?"

"Well, they're counter-cultural sites, heavily subsided by city-village advertisers, usually American Apparel or Fopp. They pride themselves on giving cool ideas and opinions to young urbanites".

It sounded ridiculous. Ashcroft said yes, immediately, just to finish up the interview from hell. The city outside was called Coruscant -apparently it had evolved on one of the virginal plains between Birmingham and Northampton as part of some great social philanthropy by a man named Carpenter. Ashcroft elected to stay there, because why not? It was safe to say that, by now, London would be an overpopulated, skankoid nightmare second to none.

"The ethernet site operator should be here within half an hour".

Ashcroft creased in horror. "I thought you'd just give me his address and I can go round there when I'm ready?"

"Mr Ashcroft, I can't allow my clients to simply wonder off. Many of the temporally-displaced immigrants, through no fault of their own, would end up working in the black economy. The gentleman you're about to meet will be legally obligated to link your paychecks with the Immigration Control Bureau".

Ashcroft negotiated that he at least be allowed to wait outside the Demarcation Centre doors where he could smoke, since his benefactor would surely recognize him due to the two-hundred year-old fashion sense.

And Baby, it's cold outside. Coloured lights notwithstanding, there was little glare; the pitch black atmos made everything smooth and clean. On the far side of the glass, there was Apricot filing his end-of-shift reports while conversing with a fire-eyed security geek. Both of them, no doubt, tacitly ready to run and apprehend Ashcroft if he should try to leg it.

None of the bright lights of Coruscant were particularly well-designed or stylish, though the living checkerboards against weaving hover cars was an undeniably sophisticated sight. From ground level, there was a kind of forest peace, enlivened now and then by futuristic pedestrian crossings and smooth-snaking trams. Mid-to-attractive ladies in mildly-sculpted caps flounced by on missions. Eternally thoughtless-busy men rushed onwards to their offices. Plus there were the students and their complacent expressions, looking to the lower stories of cacky-bright shops and hippy-owned corners all caked in waxy paint.

Through the black tableaux streets weaved an idiot on a tiny pushbike. Innocent bystanders were unnerved. It was strange; he seemed to have something mounted above the front wheel which horrified on sight. It was something that looked much like a pre-war gramophone speaker, and then with something inside which violently shimmied and swung. A heavy-set black man with the ultra-responsible face of a male nurse stood back sharply as the whip connected with his chest. He removed a sticker.

The man on the bike swung to a halt in front of Ashcroft.

"Here, check out my ethernet site, man. The visitor counter gets to fifty K and you get a map to my latest stencil. Plus there's a free set by DJ Install Upgay -_and _a trial of my game, Angry Birds: Clockwork Orange. Check it, it's _well _Mullerlite".

The living whip-creature lashed violently. Ashcroft cowered and dropped his fag.

"What is _that_?", he strained, diving wildly.

"Nay frets, Chuckle Bummer. Specially bred Triffid from Sweden, yeah? They got rid of the stringer using DNA and left a slot were you could mount a sticker dispenser. It's for my ethernet site. Check -"

Ashcroft grew ashen. "_Oh no"._

As simultaneously the man-child narrowed his eyes at the celebrity before him. "Hey! I know you - Old Father Time! You were in that space-wreck giving old Tutenkhamun a make-over. Awesome! Did you know that vid's got over twenty million hits?"

"Just talk to me. I don't care what you say, but we're being watched by my dole officer. Pretend you're giving me a job".

The trendy narrowed his eyes as if he understood. "I get ya. Full-on anti-conversation, yeah? Grant Morrison apophatic pi. The Mayor of Casterbridge searches for absolutely nothing!"

Cringing, sighing, "The man behind the desk in there thinks you're the only person in the city who can employ me".

"Well", the trendy quivered and licked his lips at the thought of joining in some cutting edge performance art, "the Man in the High Castle says that -we can be allies in the City of Sober. Here's my ethernet site".

Ashcroft was interested, mildly, in the way the idiot placed his fingers together, and when they were drawn apart, a miniature holographic screen was brought vividly to life. What he read, however, made his cringe grow ever-more ingrained.

"You run a website called _The Holocaust Denier_?"

"No way. That's just the taboo-jizzing creed. It's actually, 'The Holo-_Caustic_ Denier' -the 'I' and the 'C' are in a smaller font and they're hard to see 'cause they're yellow. Tony Public, he thinks he's getting upset because it says 'Holocaust Denier', but actually it's like I'm a hologram and I'm caustic, yeah?"

"That's actually hideous", Ashcroft pointed out.

"Cheers, man. You know I'm a big fan of your century? I did my uni thesis on Rick Rolling".

Ashcroft looked through the glass at Apricot, who was stirring a hot drink while still glancing in his general direction. He then took in the disparate range of prism-flecked skyscrapers. "All these big buildings. How could such a beautiful world have been made and still be full of idiots?"

The Holocaustic Denier licked his lips as he saw Ashcroft taking in one building in particular. The holographic computer screen, now suspended in mid air between them, was scrolled through until a certain video was hit upon. "The Kit Probyn Memorial building? Regardie this little prankoid I did last month. I've got access to one of the art blimps that gives tours across the city. From the obso deflector dish, I projected this little beauty. Freaked the people in the tower _right_ out-"

How much more unpleasantness? Ashcroft watched the video of a colossal, genuinely-scary bat-creature descending through clouds towards the business centre. Other people on the blimp observation deck could be heard breathing, 'oh my god, oh my god', while the prankster himself was easing out chuckles. The impossibly huge bat seemed to fasten itself to the side of the skyscraper before making a complex wing-over-wing crawl to the roof-level. It seemed a fire-breathing attack of some kind was about to begin, and lots of people gasped in horror -before the leathery titan cooched-down on the roof to open its mouth and deposit two dozen harried-looking pin-stripe business commuters.

"Took me three weeks to program the hologram and hack it into the blimp projector. But sometimes you've just got to turn keyboard-slave if you want to be a society-swiping 'ledge".

Apricot was turning off his window light now, collecting his windbreaker, filing out. Ashcroft exhaled a wave of relief. "I'm going now. You're an idiot", was his definitive statement.

Except the idiot, he beamed as if this was a commendation from a proud parent. "Listen, give us a buzz when you want to start the 'treme-up. Come round my gaff any time, Old Father Time. Just ask for AKA The Holocaustic Denier, Nathan Madlala, yeah?"

_Stamp It Out._

Around the corner from the little square, a deep-burgundy pub offered a handy base of operations. To pay for his ridiculously small increments of whisky, he showed the barmaid the Citizen Account no. which he'd biro-scrawled onto his forearm, not really caring if she went on to use it for fraud. It was enough that he was left alone at the fake-mahogany bartop to puzzle out how exactly to live in 2235. Imitating the movement which Nathan Madlala had made with his fingers, he brought up a holographic computer screen from thin air, though on this occasion was assuaged with dozens of snappy adverts, all of which looked like second-rate Nickelodeon cartoons designed by the hyperventilating sales executives of trendy dot-boom nothings. His fingers were able to rush through the adverts only by scratching the holographic screen with the frenzy of Hammer Horror coffin lid gouges. He eventually hit upon a very weedy section of the 'ethernet', no doubt state-funded, which gave a boring-effective street map of central Coruscant. To the first hotel he went, judging purely from the typeface and the purple colours that it wasn't the type of place to break the bank. The book-in lady received him like a Paranormal Witness interviewee; for some reason, anyone who asks for a single room at 10.35 at night -insane, unknowable.

His bed was plush, the texture of the creme-pink duvet evocative of any 21st century chain hotel. Only when he clambered in did it feel like an out-of-body whirlpool, and the sleep-mask, a crazy flagellation of seeing Bon Deglof saying, '_For fox sake, torn us around and take us back to 'Orth_". A longing for his centuries-dead sister, her dour mouth, the way he couldn't think of anything she might say to him. Day One.

Day Two consisted of finding an apartment. This was done with surprising ease -though, a world where a thirty-eight year-old man has a nineteen year-old student girl as his landlady? There must be an answer. Don't look for it, Taylor.

The apartment was bright and comfortable. A few feet outside his window was a Bladerunner-style advertising screen, building-sized and constantly mesmerizing with its subtle movements. Had the city architects thought, 'We're in the future now, let's imitate Bladerunner' -or had it happened by coincidence? Sometimes it advertised 'pay-hour' loans with a funny little Barney Rubble character. Other times it showed the trailer for a film that was still two years distant, some kind of wiry X-Files reboot starring 'John Drama Jnr' (sardonic) and 'Barbara Kidmano' (edgy). It produced a deadly ache for Ashcroft; he told himself he wouldn't activate his own wall-size TV until he'd managed to secure some kind of employment. Maybe on this occasion discipline would prevail.

He should've known, however: logic is the enemy of hard work. He persuaded himself he'd need to watch a _certain_ amount of TV just to orientate himself with contemporary culture -and so learn how best to lie on his CV, how to sell the novelty of being 200 years old to a world of trendies.

His hand needed to brush mere inches towards the monolith set for it to magic to life in an abrupt blast of excitement. Ashcroft had assumed that the problem of having a gazillion channels and all the shows being rubbishy low-concept would only've exacerbated in 2235. To his surprise, the very first program he arrived on drew him in. 'Scatweazler' - a four hour long format that was nothing more sophisticated than a meditative old man sitting in front of a monitor, viewing photos of women -and simply judging 'yes' or 'no'. Rubbishy? Yes. Low-concept? Yes. But the show was addictive for two reasons. Did your judgement match the old man's? And -how long did he allow himself to decide? Man is essentially a sex-beast, and how the atheists always regurgitate this idea in the hope they'll seem as charmingly nihilistic as the Sex Pistols on Reg Grundy. Unfortunately, the different nuances of the old man's answers -anywhere between a smiling, wistful 'yes' and a haunted 'no' after minutes of silent staring- suggested a level of discernment you could surely base a philosophy on. And a lot of the women wore Santa hats. It was the Christmas Special.

By the time Scatweazler finally came to an end, it was just shy of midnight and Ashcroft was bleary. For the first time, he changed the channel, and it was with a swipe of his hand that a banner showing the date was brought up on screen. He didn't understand. October 27th? Why, then, did everyone here say 'Merry Christmas' as a casual greeting -in newsos, pubs, when answering the phone to a complete stranger? Was it just the case that, over the centuries, life had grown so bleak that the allure of Christmas had to be increasingly extended outwards into the year? And what of the bell-shaped decorations that seemed to be pre-fabricated into the very fabric of Coruscant's architecture?

This was just another little hoopla to be put out of his mind for convenience sake. He had enough to worry about. His dreams, not surprisingly, featured an endless cavalcade of women's headshots, each of which he had to say either 'yes' or 'no' to. It was difficult because all the ladies were smiling in profound joy. While some were distinctly unlovable, it seemed Ashcroft had no right to even be thinking about them.

He woke at four AM and suspected it would be a waste of time to try and get back to sleep. There was a weird kind of loneliness involved, taking passes at his mind like an enemy fighter above dinghy ship-wreck survivors. Day Three. There'd probably be no sunrise. Directly outside his apartment, the sky held a single rolling cloud that was to all intents and purposes an otherworldly mountain range. He fell in at an all-night cafe that was more like Nighthawks than Nighthawks, an exhausted lorry driver and sympathetic community payback worker taking the place of the gangster and his moll. When the waitress handed him the change for his coffee and sausages -Winstones Rum n' Raisin for dessert-, Ashcroft attempted a conversation.

"Merry Christmas", the words flipped easily from her mouth.

"Yeah. I'm from the year 2013. I've been marooned here about three days. Can I ask, why do people say that _all_ the time? 'Merry Christmas'. In my time 'Christmas' was just a week and a bit in December".

The girl ('yes'), she faltered a bit. "I don't know any good history books you could read, but it's all about Jesus. We're celebrating when Jesus came".

"I know that", Ashcroft blinked his tiny eyes. "But what's the deal with _everyone_ saying it? Not many people were religious back where I came from, you know? They were harsh and materialistic".

The Waitress turned from the till and mechanically moved her forearms to adjust the grills. She eased around the partitions, the creases of her creme blouse a perfect springboard for the night-proof lights. "I don't know about the religion. Maybe it started as a religious thing. Jesus actually saved us, though, back in 2097, from the Tiger Men".

"Eh?"

"You still had Twitter back in your time didn't you?"

Ashcroft rippled his mouth. "Never used it myself, because I had a life".

The girl shot him a harsh look. He backtracked, "I never had the time, I mean. I always wanted to try it, though". Robert DeNiro? Danny Dyer.

"I think it was in the twenty-thirties and twenty-forties, Twitter joined forces with a couple of other companies to become the world's biggest VR platform. Better Than Life. Everyone loved it. It was just like Earth but five times the size. You could go anywhere and do anything".

"'VR' stands for 'Virtual Reality'?", clarified Ashcroft.

"It was a really weird time, apparently. People thought it was going to be the end of the real world".

She left Ashcroft to absorb this while she went to serve another mush. He didn't want to seem impatient for her return. Was she playing a game? That would be sexy. She wasn't playing a game. "All the world governments ended up banning it. You had people starting to spend their whole lives in there, because it was like Heaven. But the governments had to shut it down because nothing in society was getting done any more. But anyway, a lot of people weren't happy about Better Than Life being shut down. Even people who weren't addicted. They pointed out that in BTL, people had come together and all the old racism and prejudice had gone. So they figured they needed a new kind of virtual reality community that wasn't addictive but still brought people together. They called it Twitter Newekap. Haven't you seen people wearing the bands?"

"Ye-aahh", said Ashcroft. He rubbed his Rasputin hair and winced his eyes at the counter top. There was so much he'd overlooked.

"It's a total immersion VR with everything except your head suspended in a white void. Twitter Newekap. It's a big part of our world".

"So", he tried to envision it, "it's just your disembodied head, floating in a void?"

"It's _everyone's_ heads. A sea of anyone you'd ever hope to meet".

"But-", he frowned, felt queasy, "how do you get about in the void?"

The girl smiled a little, enjoying the weird cultural exchange. "All you have to do is say a name. The program propels you through the void to the person you've chosen".

Ashcroft forked up a sausage in a slow movement. He chewed it in a motion that was distracted, put-upon. "But -I don't know what's going on. We started off by talking about Jesus?"

"Jesus came to Twitter Newekap because it was under attack. I think anywhere there's lots of people, there's goneheads".

"Goneheads?"

Thesaurused the Waitress, "Jillminds? Krazzioes?"

"Nutters?"

"Nutters, yeah. The Tigermen believed that Twitter Newekap actually belonged to them. They believed it was something called Plarrafat, and once a certain number of people were on there, everyone would undergo something called apotheosis, and they'd live forever".

"It's nice to have make-believe", jeered Ashcroft. "Like Avatar, but with a white void instead of a space-forest".

"The Tiger Men wanted to take over, but Newekap is programmed so it can only _ever _be a white void of disembodied heads. That didn't stop the Tiger Men creating an army. They attacked people by first forming a huge, dense cloud of heads. Then they collided with the clouds of regular people and held onto them by biting their noses, their ears, their brows, just anywhere they could grab on. The Tiger Men thought that once the cluster got big enough, it would come to the attention of God, in a distant corner of the void, and He would come and save us all".

"Nice".

"I think I remember from my RE lessons, the Tiger Men believe that we're always running out of time to ask God to come and get us out of the void. During the Twitter War, they were desperate".

"OK", Ashcroft was constantly indulging her. "And where did Jesus come in to all this? Did he ride into the void with the disembodied head of a donkey next to him?"

"No. It looked like everything was over, actually. There was just this collection of screaming, frightened faces and Tiger Men linking them all together with their teeth -and no one could tell where it started and where it ended, except some of the people on the outer edges. There's a famous painting of it called 'The Void Tide' by Grayson Trulebolks. People on the edge suddenly saw that out there, in this huge white emptiness normally dense with heads -there was just one. It was Jesus. And no matter how the Tiger Men tried to bite ahold of him, they couldn't. And they swarmed over him, but he just disappeared and reappeared, and slowly the regular people got free from the Tiger Men teeth and chased them out".

Ashcroft stared at her closely in the hope that she'd show some kind of meta-irony-awareness. "But -you say, 'Jesus'. People do know, do they, that it probably wasn't the same Jesus from the New Testament, the guy that did all the miracles with the fish, and the walking on water? They do know that he was just a computer programmer, do they?"

The Waitress was phased only slightly. "But isn't that what he always was?"

So. Yeaahhh. He tried to understand. He scanned his mind for a salient fact he could've missed, something that might be an understanding of the madness. But there was nothing to understand except an age of idiots.

"I hope I was a good history teacher!"

After breakfast, Ashcroft went to a catalogue retail store and perused the Twitter Newekap headsets. The cheapest one was 3200 Faragecreds, which would leave a big dent in his finances. Not that he actually wanted one, either. Floating around as a disembodied head in a white void, in the midst of millions of other disembodied heads, was not his idea of Party Central. But it was clearly the quickest way to network himself and hitch up with magazine editors. Where was the futuristic equivalent of _Loud Quiet Loud _or_ The Fly_?

Sighing, thinking, 'I am not a geek', he lobbed the fancy box onto his bed and stood above it with low-slung shoulders. With low-aching hands, he scooped the lid off and beheld the thin band which was designed to rest feather-light over the eyes. Annoyingly, it wasn't even ready-to-use-from-the-box; the owner had to stick five little pads to his chest, arms and legs. These had to stay in place for seven hours so as to calibrate the neuro-transmitters to the wearer's unique physiology, so ensuring complete numbness of the body below the neck. Ashcroft filled this time with Scatweazler.

He blinked at the screen, the mighty, herculean commitment of the old man to swim to the very bottom of his sea of passport photos. From the balcony window, it seemed the winter sky was blinking, too, in fact narrowing and dimming out completely. Scatweazler ended. Ashcroft stared dully the New Cap eyeband on his waxy-cacky bedside.

A few walls clear from his window, the colossal advertising screen started to repeat the trailer for the X-Files once more. It was just the usual flash-edit clips of people running and shouting, dealing with a sinking plane, jumping across a perilous chasm. But there was a certain few seconds showing Agent Scully rounding a corner to stare at a blazing UFO, staring intently as if to impart serenity or alt-religion. Ashcroft liked that.

If he correctly understood the principle of Twitter Newekap, it was possible for a regular punter to enter the disembodied orbit of, say, a Hollywood star -just for the sake of being nosey- then slowly delineate outwards among the less prominent users. And so with the name of the new Agent Scully on his lips, he put the band across his eyes and prepared to experiment.

Immediately the void was everywhere, and he started to feel scared, then disorientated, then nauseated. That the stark whiteness was infinite could just about be computed by the human mind; it was the fact that it was given perspective only by a seemingly infinite number of smiling-chatting heads, both near and at the furthest vanishing point. He was hideously awed. Also, where did the light itself come from? Why was the whiteness just so -white?

No toes to wiggle. Shoulders, a torso? He searched for any kind of sensation at the base of his cranium, finding only an eerie and inconclusive tingle which didn't really help at all. And in the meantime he was slowly drifting past crowds that were both large and small, sometimes with faces on the outskirts looking mildly disengaged to the point of drifting clear.

Ashcroft had always imagined that most of the conversations on Twitter, by their nature, were not only vacuous but _exaggeratedly_ vacuous, the same way you could catch any bus and, on the back seat, probability _guaranteed_ the all-time-shamelessly-bad musak of a corpse-eyed student.

Perhaps he was being harsh on the modern-modern world? He caught a fragment of conversation between a pony-tailed woman and a group of springy-mouthed thirty somethings; "-beautiful pink light on the gorse, but we were all grumpy because we hadn't seen any animals. You know, when there's just a single thing that doesn't quite come together? In the lake we saw someone swimming along all gently. We thought, nice that someone's sharing such a beautiful morning with us. We started eating and when we looked again, we saw it wasn't a person swimming but a baby seal, and he was treading water watching us, thinking '_why are you here?!'"_

Or perhaps not. The very next cluster of heads, dough-eyed women one and all, "I couldn't believe Phil complaining about the heating speed of the ovens. And when Mel interviewed him after the bake-off had finished, it was all he wanted to talk about. I mean, I've only recently started cooking with Ledomaine myself, and watching it cook in the oven -"

The worst was yet to come, big time. Ashcroft witnessed on the nonexistent horizon -trendies, idiot thirty-somethings with mouths shaped like the shoulders of a Hannah Barbara dog.

"You just farted up my muffhole", laughed an idiot in Frank Miller Mutant shades.

"Yeah", chortled another, "but my bum is ignoring your c-".

The side of Ashcroft's disembodied head shivered in the hope he might float clear from them _quickly. _He opened his numb mouth to utter the magic name, 'Barbara Kidmano'. Before he could say it, however, the nightmare struck out. One of the trendies, the one with a snub nose on the face of a ten-year-old rap-artist, lashed out his facile gaze to the newcomer. And it was like being noticed by a gang of Walking Deads.

"Shut the corgi! It's only Old Father Time!"

"Old Father Time?", said his tweed Kanga-wearing mate. "Ash-cro-oooft!"

Now all the trendies in the vicinity, a surprising number, really, joined the inane big-upping. "Ash-crooo-oft! Ashcrooo-oft!"

"Old Father Time in the house!", said a mousey-face triumphantly.

"Please leave me alone", he uttered. "I'm not Old Father Time".

"Check out my mascara", said a certain girl-mouth, tilting his disembodied head, "The shade is an exact mash-up of kingfisher and the uniform of a junior hospice nurse? The gods are gonna be well accepting".

Scowled Ashcroft, "I wasn't trying to give him make-up, I was just trying to close his eyes because he was dead. You're all idiots".

"Dead, yeah", one of the idiots grinned appreciatively. "So he arrives in the afterlife with the Dazed and Confused afterparty: wowcher".

The crowd of heads was starting to mass, and Ashcroft glimpsed more and more clustering in at the back. Big-ups like simians at a banana hand-out, or maybe Brandon versus Money at a drunken auction. 'Old! Father! _Tiii-umm_!'

There were so many idiot-heads, really a vision of pebbles on a shale beach juddering like Mexican beans. The greatest horror was a fear that, were he to use his previously rock-solid plan of saying, 'Barbara Kidmano' and zooming into the midst of the Hollywood actress, the army of idiots would be dragged along with him. Barbara Kidmano. She was beautiful. Such Hollywood delicacy must be protected from the idiots at all costs.

But how else to escape? If you could only break orbit in the void by uttering someone's name -fine, but suddenly he realized he hadn't really retained any names since arriving in 2235. Apricot Woodbury? No. Grayson Trulebolks? No, negative. Artists are trendies, and they have a natural affinity with idiots. The cloud would only swell.

Harried and frantic, Ashcroft considered just saying a made-up name, though something about that was too nightmarish. An Eastern-bloc slave escaping his winkle-picking lorry on a muddy beach, running into a promenade newsagent and begging help from the pringle-sweater mustachio. Some things are just too un-British.

He said the only name he was comfortable with. In truth, he'd been continually glancing at that crumpled piece of paper since day one.

"_Kal-Nez Ashcroft_!"

_Realise._

In a luxuriously mid-populated area of the void, a handsome female head floated placidly, holding court with some salt-and-pepper authority figures. She gulped and nodded as she spoke, causing Ashcroft to wonder if some kind of business exchange was taking place. Nodding enthusiastically; it suggested she was impatient to take their money and run. Kal-Nez was the type of girl who looked like she was wearing husk-colour blusher across her high cheekbones, while on closer inspection she really _was _that sculpted and imperious. Clearly she was that rare breed; an empowered thirty-something who was neither a bimbo, a b- or smarmy.

Increasingly, however, her eyes were flicking up into the insane white heavens in a distracted twirl. It threatened to ruin the meeting. When the two business-heads finally flashed away, she zardozed directly over to him.

"Can I help you, mate?"

"Hello!", his eyes bobbed strangely. "Ned Ashcroft. Just thought I'd fly by. I'm actually your great-to-the-power-of-ten uncle from the year 2013. Or rather, just his head".

His tried a tentative laugh, which she didn't fall in with.

"I wondered why you were staring. You came through the wormhole above the bypass, did you?"

She was interested in the whys-and-wherefores. Ashcroft -less so. "That's what they say. I was never a big fan of sci-fi mcguffins".

"It's not a mcguffin. The tetradaspa waves are moving around in the atmosphere. There's been studies in Switzerland that show they disrupt quantum gravity".

"Ri-ight", Ashcroft gave an arid, almost-convincing smile.

Asked Kal-Nez, "If you're really my great uncle, what was the name of your mother?"

"Yeah! _I'll tell you about my mother_!", he quoted Bladerunner, which she didn't understand. When the panic receded he said, "Her name was Margaret. I think her maiden name was Gideon".

"And what was your grandmother's name?"

"On my mother's side? I don't know. On my dad's side -Gwenneth. How come you know all your family tree back two hundred years? Or are you just bluffing me to see how quick I answer?"

"I'm a journalist, Ned", she told in a dogged voice. "I can't afford to bluff anyone".

Ashcroft wished he could rub his face. In his reportage, at least ninety percent of his submissions had been bluff. Up a record executive's a-. He narrowed his eyes and took in the fierce-scrutinizing face of Kal-Nez Ashcroft. Once you had someone to properly engage with, the white void of Twitter Newekap wasn't nearly so frightening. The distant clouds of futuristic punters wafted calmly like swirls of snow on a photo negative winterscape.

There was a chance for loveable old Rasputin to move forward. "You know, it's kinda weird. In my time, I was a stalwart of the fourth estate, too. It's funny we should meet up like this. Maybe we could interview each other?"

"What was the biggest story you ever broke?"

Ashcroft cringed a little. What _was_ the biggest story he ever broke? The Ulysses 31 concept album by Marcus Eoin? The death of Ed Mumblecore from The T.O.T.T.I.E.S in that strange sledging accident?

All modesty, "I fell in with the vibe of the protest songs that happened around the Iraq war. That kinda thing. The political movement was very big at that time".

Kal-Nez blinked. Flicking her head around as if it was still attached to a body, taking gulpy little breaths; while she might be super-determined, she didn't put much stock in hiding her emotions. Maybe she'd never had to. "You know, I could really use a hand from an experienced investigator. I'm writing an expose about the illegal tetradaspa emissions that come from all the megablocks that aren't properly regulated. It's just -everyone I talk to gives me a smoke screen. I need someone to help me cut through the rubbish they tell us".

"Yeah!", said Ashcroft, with a bravado that -apparently- convinced.

She did something to transmit her address into Ashcroft's Newekap machine.

"You -uh- want that we should meet up in the proper world, then", he said nervously.

"You'd be helping me out of a fix".

She was super-busy, unlike the majority of feckless nerds on Newekap. It was somehow heartening that she still found a little time to chat about who he was and where he'd been. It was enough. When the conversation wobbled, became strained, Ashcroft merely wrinkled his lips.

"The name of my grandmum, was it -", he searched his mind, "-Wilhelmina?"

Kal-Nez drew breath into her tight jaw, "No. It was Jane".

"Ah. So- how do I actually leave Newekap?"

"You just blink, Ned. Four times in a row".

"OK! Good!", he sheepishly swayed his eyes at a certain section of eternity before darting them back to her. "Do you think I could borrow forty faragecreds for the cab ride?

Kal-Nez blinked and made-it-so.

_Peace. _

Dennis Pennis lay down your sword. Johnny Knoxville. Banksy, time to be something other than cheeky. There'd been a prophecy that told of balance one day being brought to the inane media slipstream. A simple bloghack-dun-good going into space and secretly sneering behind Sir Bon Deglof's sanctimonious face, so uniting all the trickster-media-junkies on God's Green Earth. That the doomed prophecy had only been in Ashcroft's head made it all the more tragic. Could it ever have come to pass? It was always too tempting to go out-and-out with the hatred. 'Rise of the Space-Idiots' would merely have been media terrorism. It's not inconceivable that your mam might like Russell Brand. But Andrew Dice Clay?

And in the meantime, Alex Zane, here's your nothingy column in Total Film, and Paxman, give that politician grief for not answering the question, when, really -anyone, anywhere -can you tell me why someone should sit down and watch 'Back Chat with Jack Whitehall?'

It had been dark all day, yet the darkness-proper fell down with an eerie suddenness. Between the kebab-shop curbs and the under-used legal offices, cold blue light brought deep reflections to any and all glass surfaces. Everyone was breathing hard and mesmerized. Strangely, Ashcroft had been worrying that the hover-cab driver might be distracted by the artful yellow Christmas adornments. Clearly he was used to it, however, the wild lashings of neon beauty some pretty level-headed landmarks. Let's do the hands-up, then. Hands up if you've only just written your first Christmas card.

Kal-Nez' house was old, maybe nineteen-forties. It seemed to be so old it was in a kind of timeless vacuum, with a miraculous absence of dirt or decay on the serifed roof, the deep-set windows. There was a single loose brick in the garden wall, but somehow that was charming rather than slovenly.

"Hello! Can I interest you in a raffle ticket for the kiddies 5-a-side team down at the 'rec?"

Kal-Nez didn't understand the socio-real joke. Ashcroft simply pressed on, "Here I am. Thought I'd bring my body this time".

She ushered him in, asked him a few questions about the hovercab-ride, which he didn't have an opinion on beyond it being strangely decadent and oppressive. At the top of cramped staircase, she nodded up at the uppermost door. "I've got to apologize for my housemate. He's a DJ. The music will drive you mental".

Ashcroft tensed his ears and heard 'Can You Stop the Cavalry?' by Jona Lewie.

"That's not so bad", he gave a faint smile. "I like that song".

Kal-Nez rolled her eyes at him as she waited for the track to start in earnest. Sure enough, Jona Lewie was only the primer in a bizarre three-way mash-up that included 'Cockney Thing' by Rusko and Jerry Goldsmith's score for _Alien. _Indeed. Ashcroft had to decide if he was more clenched-up by the unconventional rhythm or simply the knowledge that, for hundreds of years now, _no _new music had been produced -just endless rehashes and eerie mash-ups.

"Ideally I'd start renting my own apartment, but at the moment I'm all about the book. There's people out there in the megablocks who actually need me. The maintenance contracts of their apartments are being sub-managed through a dozen different companies and none of them are willing to admit that they've done any work to sure-up the tetradaspa pollution that comes off their xarret reactors, the -"

Ashcroft had to think hard about the last time he'd been around someone so idealistic. Undoubtedly it was Clara, working on her corporate misconduct thesis. You either cared about these hippyish crusades or you thought they were an idiot waste of time. Ashcroft, personally, thought it was complete jizz, yet the fact that he'd been able to keep his mouth shut and co-exist with Clara -that _meant _something. So what if he couldn't actually feign a pro-active interest? The very fact that he didn't tell her it was chattering liberal b-s surely showed how much he loved her.

Kal-Nez sat tall in the centre of her small lounge, all the snug bits of furniture and low sideboards. By her nature, she had the face of a committed warrior. Ashcroft wondered how he was able to connect with her in the slightest. Less-than-full sunlight, tumbling purple curtains, his slight hangover which set the whole place at an angle, all of it meant there was not much room to maneuver.

" -honestly, how can you have the Low Rent Housing Commission being allowed to investigate highrise pollution levels when they've got such a vested interest? A lot of the tenants have underlying health problems and no one's bothered to rule out the tetradaspa emissions. It's like whole areas of society are allowed to slip through the cracks while we all ponce around with our hoverbikes and our Harpobagz".

Ashcroft grinned a little weakly and poured himself another glass of red. "This is great wine, by the way". It tasted like Fruit Pastels and blood, but the alcohol was strong; he wasn't lying. There was a certain tang in the air, too, which made him wonder. Normally around Christmas time, the air freshener companies brought out limited edition fragrances based on the smell of mulled wine, nocturnes, pine needles or log fires. How did that work in a country where it was _perpetually_ Christmas? Perhaps her cushions smelt like childhood just by coincidence.

"They're among the poorest members of society, but why should they be singled out for these stupid, substandard living conditions? You know, I've never seen a single report on the highrise reactors that can rule out excess radiation. Meanwhile, the city keeps on changing their inspection mandates and compliance rules. It's ridiculous! Take a look at these SHD reports-"

Ashcroft heard every word she said. He also daydreamed, heavily. Take that Monday afternoon back in 1998 when The Exorcist was finally allowed a domestic video release. Matt Bochenski had arranged an informal screening party for any of the usual suspects who might be called to review it. Ashcroft drank throughout. By the time the priest had taken his dive and the girl was delivered, he was fighting his own extra-carnate battle with dizziness, tiredness, mind-spam. A life-long non-driver, he'd called upon Clara, who'd recently passed her test, to get him home.

'_The Exorcist made me drunk_'. There was a very specific circumstance to explain, yet try as he might, he couldn't quite describe it to her. '_The Exorcist put a story in my head, and I heard Tubular Bells, and now I'm going to lose my eternal soul'. _

She was incredulous, though she'd come to collect him all the same, despite the fact she was due at a crucial interview for her latest legal action. A local secondary school had been accused of expelling children too readily. Clara was all set to interview a fifteen year old lad whose first and only crime was chalking onto their blackboard numerous c- and b-, plus their maths teacher having sex with a kestrel above a caravan.

They'd pulled up next to the city library where Clara was set to interview the errant boy. The plan was to show that he was actually a diligent soul with a real desire to learn. Clara had asked Ashcroft, did he want to rest in the library car park? There was a dim conception that he'd be safer inside, because books were there, and what The Devil hates most is _knowledge_ and differing points of view. Around the main study desks was a series of plush easy-chairs. These were clearly designed for pensioners, yet Ashcroft was happy to slump down and observe Clara as she went about saving the teenage tearaway.

And it was strange. Perhaps it was just the warm delirium of the alcohol, but he couldn't help feeling proud of Clara, the way she was easy-going while still getting to the heart of it all. He felt for the plight of the teenager, too, who actually _did _seem like a sympathetic character, with his heavy-set frown and pen-swirling fingers. It was all about redemption, everyone retreating back to a certain threshold of honesty, simplicity. The huge silver clock had ticked away in heavy clunks and life was easy. Over all, the meeting went smoothly, even if the boy did keep glancing across at the lanky bohemian slumped in the corner, muttering conciliatory nothings, wearing a promotional Captain Howdy mask.

From the uppermost room, Kal-Nez' housemate started playing Mistletoe and Wine, which sent Ashcroft even further back. From the tiny sense of traction, there was an idea that maybe he was playing it on vinyl, and who placed stock on owning Cliff Richard _records_ any more, even ultra-underground DJs? Call it sweet. He had to admit that the second element of the mix -'Aurora' by Bjork- sounded pretty good, too. Even the emerging main riff -something cacophonous by John Zorn- didn't ruin the vibe completely.

"What I need more than anything is access to one of the art blimps that gives tours across the city", said Kal-Nez in a flouncey tone. "The actual industry-standard tetradaspa scanners you can download as an app to any store-bought satnav. The problem is, you've got to get high enough to scan whole city blocks to separate the blurring. I mean, I've already got a commission from RT for when the book is published, but I just need to get some stats".

Ashcroft thought very carefully about what he was about to say. He thought once, twice, but still wasn't convinced he was suggesting a sane or uncompromised course of action. Worriedly, "I know someone with access to the art blimps".

_You love Timmy Mallet. _

Approaching the address on the holo-card, there was again the parallel of nervously edging through a cluster of Walking Deads, and what would happen if they noticed you? Would you be infected by the idiot virus? Ashcroft's eye was drawn to an un-ironic fonejacker clone, then a La Roux-turned-evil, then a skinny-yellow-trousered nightmare with a traditional Yorkshire flat cap -traditional except it was five times the normal size. And they walked so confidently among the less conceited city dwellers. It amazed him that Kal-Nez wasn't fearful. For Ashcroft, the fear was two-fold. Their buzzard-leveled eyes and well-bred jawlines; what did they mean? And -just the fashion. What did it mean? Tip-trotting across a dull pedestrian walkway came a delicate girl in a conspicuously clean and new-looking frock coat, Sherlock Holmes style. Except on top of the heavy felt shoulder flaps was an additional _twelve_ shoulder flaps, the effect of which -all the trenchcoats of an average Dazed and Confused fashion spread, flung together onto a single elfin model from the year 2235.

Ashcroft led the way for the most part, though he felt massively ashamed that he was leading Kal-Nez into such an artificial-microculture, idiot trendies taking the stance of Red Indian braves hauling up a bustling outpost from nothing. The terraced shops were so tiny, yet to make even the tiniest purchase from each one would set you back a dizzying number of faragecredits. Also, now and again, such creatures -perhaps latino gang-members as reimagined by Gareth Pugh- would slow their pace and cry out to him, '_Old Father Time! Old Father Time!'_

"A couple of them saw me climbing out of the wreckage", he tried to explain to Kal-Nez. "All dust and stuff on me. And now they all call me, 'Old Father Time'".

"That's really cute, Ned", she snide-smiled, as if it's something he'd actually desired.

Smooth, post-brick buildings nestled some more traditional three story rises. There was a horrible shrugging office block with a prominent burglar alarm actually in the process of sounding as they walked past. Ashcroft narrowed their choices to a lead-lined city-nook that could equally be Hong Kong or Swindon. The intercom name plates had all been replaced by images; a cat with a fag end, Sheriff Hunter S Thompson fiddling with the controls of a Star Trek phaser, the Dali Lama kneeling down on a prayer mat made from stuffed Lady Gaga.

_"OOZEATTTTTT?!"_

"It's me", said Ashcroft tightly.

Nathan, clearly, was incredulous, "_Ned Ashcroft_?"

"No, Lembit Opik and Pam Ayres. Can we come in?"

His endearing non-endearing eyes bobbed excitedly as he ushered them into a small hallway, a Joel Schumacher boudoir smelling of Blackjacks, socks, magazine insert aftershave. Not that there were conventional boudoir draperies, coloured silk, embroidered throws. Instead, the exotic colours were supplied by flexed neon light tubes across indie movie props and well-designed-but-underwhelming flyposters. Hard-and-fast musicos who might either be the new Aphex Twin or just Martin Garrix' younger brother, wobble-jawed. Holographic trompe l'oeils were squandered by being set to show, not a beguiling outdoor scene, but a distant geometric mash-up of distant zig-zags, and where _is _Max Headroom these days? Weeping, trapped inside the one-zero binary of Channel 4's HD horse-racing coverage?

"In you come", the suave grin fighting for dominance over childish enthusiasm. "AIDS before beauty. And who's this wondrous lady? From the back-and-from-the-front?"

Kal-Nez was clearly strong enough to defend herself against Nathan. Ashcroft cringed all the same.

"I'm Ned's great-times-ten grandniece Kal-Nez. You must be Nathan".

From a low corner bedecked in thick lobby posters, Ashcroft detected tiny movements, beguilingly slow and hypnotic. He wondered if it was some kind of pet. Only as he and Kal-Nez edged forward did he see - a baby? The kid was thoughtful and peering, barely a year old; certainly the last thing anyone would have expected to find in such a trendy-den.

"Oh!", said Kal-Nez, as if she was the type of girl who cooed at the sight of a baby. "Boy or girl?"

"Yeah, that's right, babe. Forget the androgyny. Boy or girl? Girl! Just deal with it, China".

"Yours?"

"Nah. Little Yodaffon? Belongs to my code-writer Peppa. Sent her out to get some Madlala-fuel, AKA the mind-squeezer, ultra-latte. Skatchanitch black. You bring me the coffee-transfusion, I bring you the revolution, bwoy".

"Big talk", said Kal-Nez, girlishly, playfully, still calculated.

As if modesty was something to be danced around, Bez from the Happy Mondays, at an overpriced university gig in 1994, "All I'd say is, the hype, you can take it or leave it. But sometimes the cultural malaise just keeps on swamping everything until a lone hero gets spat out, someone to challenge all the stupid preconceived ideas. Someone to kick down a few doors, yeah?"

"Is that what you do is it? Kick down doors?"

Nathan Madlala started to stroll around his diminutive and flashy enclave. "I'll let you decide that, Angel Lynx. Let a man be judged by the fruits of his punter-scaring. I've got over three k subscribers to my ethernet site, soldiers on the street one and all, just waiting for the word. Martha Washington sells out by appearing on the 7 O'clock Show on BBC Prime and talking about muffins? Guess who's gonna be the only kid brave enough to diss her on his vlog the very next day?"

Said Kal-Nez, "Even when I was a kid, I always thought Martha Washington was overrated. We need someone who takes care of _everyone_. The poor, the business-heads, everyone. My first published article was called, 'Society: Evolution not Revolution'".

"Exactly!", Nathan gave her the funky-wrist gunslinger gesture. "I operate an Omnimedia Truth Outlet. Total mucking disclosure of the reality-lie on all platforms _everywhere_. The bag lady on the corner? She's happy because I've given her a farragecred and a baseball cap. The spods all queuing up in their hivey little supermarkets? Get inside there and wreck the mike, psyche".

After passively-aggressively pressing a fingertip to his forehead, Nathan sprang across to a broad window overlooking the city.

"Check it out". He used his fingertips to enlarge a certain corner of the cityscape, the distant hover-car bay of a mid-size Tesco. "I've hidden over two hundred holo-emitters across the city. They'll never find them all". At the flick of his remote control, the huge TESCO EXPRESS sign was glossed over with a hologram until it read, 'SWASTIKA FACTORY'. This had clearly been done before, and often; the trolley-pushers scrambled to try and find the concealed holo-emitter, across nearby garages, in traffic lights, parked cars, waste bins. The gaunt-looking manager came out a massaged his temples in utter despair.

Kal-Nez gave a small, indulgent smile. Ashcroft was far from impressed. "Yeah. It's a little bit simple-minded, isn't it? So what if they're a big corporation? They still employ lots of local people, they still have sensible prices". He pointed through another window pane towards a rival supermarket. "Why not go after Waitrose, who really _are_ stupid, and Nazis?"

"Keen instincts, Ned", said Nathan. "But I'm all about reaching out to the people. Not many people use Waitrose, do they?"

Ashcroft was about to reply that perhaps that was the point, when Nathan and Kal-Nez' attention was swept up by another prank. "Check _this _out, it is _well _Prometheus".

In a sprawling balcony recreation ground, a wide-gaited business man was walking his pet dog, a greyhound. The animal trotted happily a few feet ahead of its owner. It stopped; when it turned, the dog's head was superimposed with Nathan Madlala's, which proceeded to shout and scream like Salvador Dali showing off to a New York magazine editor. The owner: so afraid he lunged into a nearby squall of river bank.

"So basically", Ashcroft winced, "at best, your entire anarchistic website is just 'That's Life'? Esther Rantzen going up against a company that employs millions of people just because some slack-jawed kid got his fingers caught in a pushchair, and then the next item, a dog that says 'sausages'. Very good. Very revolutionary".

Nathan smiled enthusiastically. "A dog that hassles his owner for sausages. Nice one, Ashers. See what happens when we blue-sky together? Who's Esther Rantzen? Was she like Sarah Silverman, yeah?"

Throughout all this, Kal-Nez thoughtfully rubbed her teeth together. If there was any underlying seriousness to any of it, she'd be the one to find it. "But Nathan, there's so little money going around these days, and so few people with enough gumption to want to change the world. How come you made such a success of your ethernet site?"

"Vex-Men Origins: Madlala? Pin your quintoes back. I grew up on Libra Colony. March, 2225, the Tiger Men Brotherhood took over completely. No sweat? Sweat. All the old clerics hanging out of windows, making us memorize the Holy Bok, and we don't wanna see you eating no food that's been prepared by more than one person, and we don't wanna see you wearing anything white. Don't turn left? Never turn left? Take a chill pill, Tony".

There'd been a deep dictate: don't listen to him. Yet all of a sudden, Ashcroft's ears pricked. "Your colony was taken over by the Tiger Men?"

Said Kal-Nez, "They're like the biggest religious fundamentalists we've got these days".

"Yeah, I know about the Tiger Men, the girl at the cafe told me. But -", Ashcroft winced. "They didn't want anyone to turn left? Turn left where?"

Again it was Kal-Nez who played encyclopedia, "Anywhere. One of the big disciplines of their religion, no one's allowed to turn left until they're twenty-five".

"But", taking sonorous breaths, trying not to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, "what happens if you're walking down the street, and you need to go in a shop, but it's there on the left?"

"The Tiger Men design their communities in one big spiral shape, with the buildings all on the right".

"But that's -", the twenty-first century man searched for the correct word. Silly? Contrived?

Said Nathan, "Yeah! Exactly! A fundamental assault on basic human liberties, yeah? Thousands of years of kids being oppressed _right_ up. They just needed one lone hero to step forward and say, 'You know what? No more. Zig-a-zig-_nay'"._

Full of queasy and over-thought smiles, Nathan took a few paces towards his wall-TV and brought up a sketchy archive film from some distant space colony. "What I did, yeah, your bad Nathan M, Rider on the S-storm -waited till midnight when all the clerics and warlords were dozing away like cartoon cats, went around the entire colony filming this. Had it all edited by the morn. Then the next day hacked it onto every monitor within a five mile radius -"

There followed a kind of self-produced music video, made, Ashcroft guessed, with a futuristic camera that bobbed along in the air in front of him. Nathan Madlala, dressed all in white like some heavenly homeboy, dancing and robot-jiving around anonymous corners. Sometimes he danced like the Kia-Ora crow. Consistently, he turned left with a theatrical flourish. The music was one part the Sex Pistols, one part Priceless Game. But the lyric samples, (cleverly? no) all featured the word, 'left'. Of the ones Ashcroft could identify; Tim McGraw - You Left Me. Left of the Middle - Natalie Imbruglia. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - You Left, Right?

And the video went on for far too long. Increasingly, unavoidably, Nathan's dancing was less about the empowerment of secular human liberties and more about a mawkish fourteen-year-old trying to ape Christopher Walken in Weapon of Choice. Ashcroft thanked God when it was over.

"These days everyone knows you can stand up against oppression if you want. But imagine if you had no frame of reference, yeah? If all you had was the candy in your heels and beats in your bonce?"

"That was really brave", said Kal-Nez, trying hard to keep the noncommittal edge from her voice. "What happened?"

Nathan moved his corpulent fingers up to his head, ran his fingers along his temples, between his eyes, down along the right side of his jaw. A kind of seam appeared. Taking hold of either side, he split the difference -and lifted clear at least a third of his own head.

Ashcroft ran to the window and vomited.

"That fateful day April 2nd, 2225. The Tiger Men militia found me and shot me in the head. But they didn't realize that the Colonial Surgeons had neuro trans-replicators that could roboclone the missing bits". The fraction-of-a-mouth and single eye smiled as he explained. He even managed to thrust his tongue into his lower lip and make the classic, 'mnng-gnuh!' gesture of foolishness. "The operation only took three hours, and by the end, I was as good as new, except they had to T-1000 my head into two separate bits".

Weakly, to Kal-Nez, Ashcroft said, "Has he put it back on yet?"

"Nathan..."

"Check it out", said Nathan, waving his jagged right-hand skull around. "Morcombe and Pace Christmas Special. 'What do you think of the show so far?', '_Rubbish, you c-'"._

There was queasiness, and a certain pain behind his eyes. In time, he felt Kal-Nez' stoney hand on his shoulder. Scanning the frost-grey street beneath, there was a feeling of deep shame. "I think -I might have been sick on someone. There was a guy in a green puffa walking past-"

Said a blessedly whole-headed Nathan, "Nah. Chill with De Stijl". He took a garden gnome and lobbed it cleanly through the open window. Long before it reached the ground, it shimmered out in a golden swirl of pin-pointed atoms. "Mayor Bojangle's anti-suicide transporters. The scanners fix on anything long before it hits the ground and redirects it to a Samaritans drop-in".

Ashcroft groaned. Soon he crawled across to a faux-leather sofa in the shape of Godzilla's spines and hauled himself in, skinny elbows trembling.

"About the Art Blimp you've got passes for. I was hoping you could help us", said Kal-Nez in her easy voice.

"You want up, Raggae Rugae? Problemo neyo", he then turned his unhealthy smile to the window, where something in the street below had snagged his attention in a rush. "Ah, brilliant! Here comes Peppa. Check it, I think this'll be episode ten in Season 2 of Peppa Punk'd. Watch her face, Ned. You're so lucky to be seeing this live. The vids always get 4 K views just in the first few seconds".

In the manner of a battlefield commander, Nathan gestured for three of his floating cameras to join him and film the scene in the street below. He then started to act. He was a pretty good performer, if only the drama itself wasn't so strange and evil.

On his phone, "Peppa! It's Madlalas! Yodafonn's crawled under the bed and he's playing with matches! He's playing with matches! He's about to strike one! I don't know what to do!"

Yodafonn -a tiny baby, unable to even _move_ his stubby fingers, let alone make any kind of co-ordinated grip. Still it was a believable enough scenario for the mother. Down in the street, about half a block away, a not-unattractive twenty-year-old perpetual student girl flinched heavily, barely able to keep the phone between her shoulder and cheek and the two double-size coffees from spilling _everywhere. _Her face sometimes convulsed, sometimes gawped, as she hurried along through the thick crowd of winter-shouldered city dwellers. Nathan chewed his pink lips in delight. He commanded one of the attending cameras, "Remix pattern Needlebliss One". The frame of Peppa's Lola Run exploits started to pulse, one part a Jason Bourne escape sequence, one part a frenetic 2 Unlimited music video.

The sense of her panic was horrifying. Nathan didn't miss a beat. "_Peppa, what you doing?!_ Why are you still trying to carry the coffee?!"

It seemed she was going to lunge anyway, but on having it pointed out to her, she gave up the ghost and spilt the coffee across the hip of a Fioravanti-wearing executive, who tensed in utter shock. Nathan laughed in delight. Ashcroft wished that he didn't understand the terrible comedy, yet part of him did; it was Peppa's strange, oh-so-English refusal to either fully sprint or fully panic.

When she arrived, grey face whirring with shock, there was nothing to greet her except Nathan gently up-tilting the cot and giving a quote-unquote sign from behind Yodafonn's head.

"Classic! That is Andrew Sachs to the max". He then explained to Ashcroft and Kal-Nez, "I tell you what, she is gonna get me back so bad one of these days - aren't you, babe?"

"Yeah", said Peppa, traumatized.

_I drink your milkshake. I drink it up!_

There was quite a conflict of opinions on the walk back to the apartment, with Kal-Nez stating that Nathan was largely harmless if a little bit hyperactive and self-obsessed, countered by Ashcroft's belief that he was a dangerous idiot cult-leader.

"He's a cult _figure_, Ned, not a cult-leader", she breezed. "And why shouldn't he be raucous after all he's been through? Not many people have been shot in the head for standing up for something they believe in".

The hazy blue dusk of the winter sky was growing in strength. At the edges of the horizon, between plastic building nets and the small lights of taxi ranks, it was all of it flat, inescapable. Ashcroft thrust his hands into his greatcoat pockets and twisted his face.

"'_Something_', right. I don't understand the argument. All he did was turn left. What are we celebrating? The brilliant democratic invention that everyone be allowed to turn left if they want? That's not democracy in action, it's barely even a thing".

"He stood up to the Tiger Men, Ned!", Kal-Nez gasped. "Besides, I don't think you're annoyed about Nathan and the Tiger Men. I think you're annoyed that he's an idiot and he's like a product of _your _time. I didn't understand half the references he made, but you obviously did. Sarah Silverman? Esther Rantzen? The Nazis? You're annoyed because he's the true face of your time".

"No. There're idiots everywhere. You don't understand", Ned was dark and dramatic. "They're across all time and space and they're slowly outnumbering us".

Kal-Nez shook her head, retreated back into a private world. "Anyway, all we have to do is join him on the Art Blimp tomorrow, I can get some spectral scans of all the tetradaspa leaks across the cityscape. It's all my book's waiting for. Then maybe when it's published, I'll be the one doing _Nathan _favours".

"Yeah", said Ned, dubiously.

While trying to stir up enough weariness to sleep, he spent an hour or two watching Scatweazler. It was some kind of special compilation show where the old man said 'yes' to each and every photo, almost without hesitation. His tone was sugary. After twenty minutes, Ashcroft found it preferable to turn the sound down and put on some background music. His choice -and he was amazed it was in the public domain section of Coruscant's database- Philip Glass' orchestral version of 'Heroes', an album he'd always associated with Christmas due to the extensive use of glockenspiel, the rolling-tranquil double-bass. Back in 1988, his Uncle Arrowsmith had given him a £10 HMV voucher. He's bought something for nine in the sales, and, unexpectedly, the checkout girl had given him a one pound voucher as change. Despairingly, he'd gone off to find something that would hit the mark exactly, finding the 'Heroes' tape in a wire basket.

Why hadn't he just given the checkout girl the one pound voucher and said, 'keep this for you'-?

His wall-television was obviously able to monitor when the viewer was starting to doze; it automatically dimmed the screen, leaving him a solitary figure, nine-tenths unconscious, a silhouette before the glittering lights of the city. Christmas Time. He sensed the tireless illuminations of yellow bulbs, green bulbs, satin, ochre. He was a child again. The closing sequence of Captain Scarlet, your man is both pinned in an avalanche and desperately trying to reach a sizzling bundle of dynamite. Beside his grasping arm, his cap. Why not just use the cap as a scoop to give him the extra reach?

At one point, the grey-glow of the television was eclipsed by something. Something that was alive and moving slowly towards him.

He perceived that it was the Hollywood actress Barbara Kidmano.

And, yes, outside, it was starting to snow.

"_I tried to protect you from the idiots_", muttered a semi-comatose Ashcroft.

"I know", said Kidmano. "I was with you in Newekap. You were about to say my name".

"I didn't see you".

"I'm everywhere, Ned".

Ashcroft's mind swam in the semi-consciousness, and he tried to compute her words. Maybe he succeeded, maybe he didn't. He stared at her beautiful mouth, firm and unique as it was. His mumbled conclusion, "This is a dream".

"Not quite", she smiled. "Think cynical advertising ploy. The ethernet scans the minds of everyone who watches the X-files trailer and enjoys it. It loads cookies in your subconscious and at certain times, things X-filesy will crop up in daydreams. It's all about event movie recognition and media-platforming. I don't really like that the film company does it -which is why I try to connect personally with the interested party. At least give them a personal touch".

"So you're not really seeing me?"

"I'm absolutely seeing you, Ned Ashcroft. You could say that I'm just an AI algorithm with a faux-engaging personality -but aren't we all?"

"Yeah". He felt his almost-closed eyes radiating, even in the dark.

"My advice on your predicament. Just fall in with them. The idiots. Or at least just coast along with them for the time being. See what happens. In the words of Paul McCartney, 'There is still a chance that they will see'".

Lolling his head a little, "But they're idiots".

"I know!", stated Kidmano.

"They think he's like Che Guevara, just because he turned left".

"I know!", the Hollywood actress shrugged steeply. "But at least they've got the sense to hide behind Christmas. I love Christmas, don't you?"

"No", breathed Ashcroft.

Said Kidmano, "You get worlds run by idiots, or c-s, and you get this -_thing_- of thinking, 'ah, but I guess all this horror is at least forcing me to focus on my own eternal soul, and the idea that one day there'll be peace, so maybe it's worth it'. But Christmas is something else. It's like thinking of peace and your eternal soul -just for the sake of it. And almost everyone feels that way, even if they're atheists, or wonking thousands of pounds on crappy presents. The concept is still there, no matter how small".

Ashcroft -was more asleep than ever. With eyelids closed and REM dashing cylon, his words came practically as a dribble. "_I promise to watch your film when it comes out"._

"I know you will", said Kidmano and smiled benevolently.

"_Even if the franchise is dead"._

"I'll decide what's dead and what isn't".

Ashcroft slept in earnest and dreamed of a thousand things at once.

_The Day Zane Lowe Stole Pink Rabbit._

Making their way to the Art Blimp depot with Nathan Madlala was a complete nightmare; it was reminiscent, to Ashcroft, of the Spice Girl's Wannabe video, with a single man-child taking the place of the girls' stately-home-invasion, all the old squares looking incongruous and shellshocked. An insanely capitalist society doesn't need to be changed into something irreverent, youthful, zesty -it just needs to stop being insanely capitalist. Chiefly, Nathan's main weapon of anarchism was the hologram. He'd mounted around his body a ring of microscopic projectors which, as he moved, created a long trail of Nathan Madlala echoes, some of which moved with minds of their own thanks to sophisticated AI software. The echoes impeded hurrying commuters by cutting them up, body-popping, Bowie-dancing, ad-libbing terrible raps about Zion versus corporate mind-control and Thrive-style optimism. Were that he didn't also zig-zag-dote on the one or two conspicuously beautiful women who happened to cross his path. The concept was that people couldn't legitimately be angry because the echoes weren't really there. It was annoying -philosophically annoying, like someone relying on Descartes or existentialism to justify the reality of Ryen McPherson or Nathan Fielder. Said one of the Madlala-echoes to a girl who looked like some shamelessly-pretty, latter-day Dr Who companion, "I can see it in your eyes. You and me, yeah, ships in the night. _Follow the white rabbit". _

He blew from his palm a well-animated holo-rabbit which bolted down into the Dr Who companion's handbag. The text alarm of her phone sounded. The echo-Nathan nodded sick-suavely and vanished.

It had been like this for a long time now. People committing vast amounts of time and mental energy in the vain hope of connecting with serendipity, all via an economy of nothingy service industries. Trendy websites giving you Adventure Time short stories when a piece of legalese or a simple dialogue box would do. A society with only two kinds of people: consumers and people in a personality cult.

Mumbling to himself, Ashcroft was really gone this time. "_Dad, can I be Malcolm McLaren when I grow up? Dad, can I be Malcolm McLaren, and Vivien Westwood can make me a hologram codpiece? _You idiots_. You idiots"._

Ever the quietest and most observant member of the Madlala entourage, Peppa heard him, asked him what he was talking about.

Baby Yodafonn looked at him from the warmth of his Jake the Dog grow and cooed.

The child. What would become of the child?

At the Art Blimp boarding station, an impossibly tall, impossibly fortified block poised longingly across the city edge, Nathan switched to full celebrity mode. Peppa gulped. As a business woman who was far too diligent to be authentic, Kal-Nes stared stormily at her tetradaspa scanner as she checked the calibration. It was time to walk the length of a full body x-ray prior to going aboard; the entourage moved through easily, though it should have been obvious from Nathan's gulped-down shakey-smile that he had further mischief planned.

The alarm sounded. The multitude of cap-wearing securities gasped as the scanner revealed the very worst case scenario that insured their existence. At the hip of Nathan's skeleton, in the watery translucence of his nanojacket -a huge, imposing handgun.

Before their gasps turned into barked orders, Nathan stepped clear, pulled the gun from his pocket and started to reconfigure it.

"Megatron. The original terrorist, yeah?", he touched a finger to his temple as if to suggest _they_ were idiots. He tossed the action figure to most neurotic-looking guard. "Here, sell it on eBuy. Buy yourself a new armband, Kommandant".

Looking around and grinning at the other passengers as if there was even a chance they'd appreciate his social commentary. Ashcroft sensed that his own expression was curiously steady, but only because it had become tin-foil-over-horror as a default. Nathan carried a large kit bag, which one of the guards peered inside and was unperturbed by. Now, what stupid toy could he be taking along with him?

Up, up and away. The deep canyon avenues of Coruscant were something to behold, with elegant futuristic architecture seeming curiously clean, if only because the creme masonry eagerly drank in the grime. White apertures and hasty-practical clamps made from lead presented nice little nooks and crannies, cosy, even if you could never quite think of it as home. For sure, there was no mistaking that this was a radically different city than the ones Ashcroft had known. Everything was built to utilize and celebrate the glide-down spaceships and the busy bourgeois communities of the upper level. There were roof-mounted advertising screens, one of which was showing his beloved X-files trailer. Rougher rooftops had eyecatching graffiti, too colourful and with overly-clever optical illusions. The beauty put Ashcroft on edge. Stay sober on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Press RB when immediately behind an enemy to execute a non-lethal takedown.

Seagulls wheeled placidly beneath them, and it was weird that they were all completely silent, peering their warm eyes down at the city as if they too were milling VIPs. On one side of the obvo deck, some James May style geeks were flying remote-control mini-blimps into the massive gulf of crystal-clear atmosphere. Ashcroft felt no desire to try this whatsoever.

Kal-Nez was buzzing with concentration as she swept the spectral scanner over the side of the blimp rail. Amazingly, it looked like she was getting what she needed. The high-range sat-nav she'd clipped on to a photographer's strap, but it kept snagging on the skirt of her jacket. Nathan, very helpfully, started to adjust the buckle, by accident or design directly over her left breast.

Blustery wind hit Ashcroft's tin-foil face, always moving in the same direction as he ghosted into the lounge area to buy a krazy-price coffee. When he paced back out onto observation ring, Nathan had, at least, suspended the molestation of his grand-niece. But now he was up to something else.

A world where dogs don't lust after sausages but rather Fonejacker-style mischief; he tensely moved his ambient eyes from Peppa to the hover-cot where Baby Yodafonn was blinking at the heavens. To Yodafonn, then to Peppa, then back again, almost an exercise in zen defocussing, or watching a flower bloom at 10.5 speed.

"I need a wee", Peppa said in her subdued voice. She blinked down at the baby then swept away to the restroom at the rear of the blimp.

Nathan Madlala licked his red lips. "This is gonna be brilliant". He sprang into action, removing from the huge kit bag his very own remote controlled mini-blimp. He set it hovering in the air, then removed something else from deep inside the canvas. A plastic doll, dressed in exactly the same Jake the Dog romper as Baby Yodafonn. Ashcroft looked on and tried with all his might to understand what the idiot was working at.

Of their own volition, two hover-cams slipped from a pouch and started to film them. What Nathan was up to; he gaffa-taped the Yodafonn-replica onto the underside of the mini-blimp. He took two spoons, bent the ends around, then taped them to doll's head so that it resembled a robot-fly-racedriver. He then turned a sharp corner into a small alcove and gifted the real Yodafonn to a stereotype gang of grinning oriental tourists.

"This just might be my masterpiece. Big Spoon Baby Balloon".

Ashcroft was horrified. "_No_".

"La-la-la! The Boy!"

"Nathan", said Ashcroft gravely. "Don't do this".

"When Peppa comes back, she's gonna have the mental fit of all time". He launched the plastic baby-fly clear into the white sky. Thumbing down the remote, it was already several feet away but the time Ashcroft had enough air in his throat to speak again.

And then Peppa returned, in a second flat -_white._

She didn't even scream his name, just leapt forward, scrambled over the rail above the precipice city. She reached out, even as she herself started to slip from the thin outer ledge. Ashcroft -what should he do? What _could_ he do? He rolled over the edge, placed his toes on the minimal ledge and shouldered Peppa back over into safety. But the effort of pushing was a give-and take thing. Fingers spasmed on nothing. The muscles in his legs lost traction, became briefly nonexistant. As he fell clear from the blimp.

Preconceptions of falling away into a blustery sky, no parachute, no hope, powered away as the atmosphere gyroed. Every muscle in his arms and legs tingled wildly as they failed to find a connection from gasp-to-gasp. What to do. How to fall to your death in the correct manner. He moved one arm in a swimming motion, though it did nothing to right his orientation, less still to calm the nausea. There was a significant triangle-shaped view of the city streets below, coming towards him at a maddeningly inexorable speed.

His breathing hitched a couple of times; this Ashcroft read as a funny acceptance of his imminent death. Presumably, he -did die? Dazzling, warm energy encompassed his abdomen, shoulders and mind. Climax-Climax-Anticlimax; only after the event did he remember, '_Mayor Bojangle's anti-suicide transporters - fix on anything long before it hits the ground and redirects it to a Samaritans drop-in'._

Floor-level, on some kind of beige-dusty surface, the vertigo was even fiercer than when he'd been falling. He shouldered himself around, staring up into what seemed to be floodlights. Expectations of coming face-to-face with some T-shirt-wearing Samaritans volunteer faded out. In time, however, slow-moving figures _did_ arrive to stand thoughtfully overhead. Staring, glaring. What did it mean?

They were all adults. Yet they all wore children's face-paints. Orange. Black. Funny white muzzles pasted around their mouths, whiskers.

Ashcroft's stomach clenched.

Tiger Men.

Milling around in an undisciplined-but-never-lazy swirl, there were males, females, their thoughtfulness somehow exacerbated by the wonky designs on their faces; a clear parallel was any number of early Dr Who monsters, Adam West villains, the rabbits from Inland Empire. Pathos-ridden. Still deadly, of course - the lead figure presented a bolt-straight image of crazily subtle authority. He moved at leisure between an old white-van fella and a girl with creased cheeks.

Ashcroft took hurried breaths. Almost accidentally, on exhaling, his breaths contained words, "Please. There was an idiot on a blimp. He pretended to have Big Spoon Baby Balloon, and I had to save Peppa, and I fell. I'm not supposed to be here".

The apparent leader wore as much make-up as any of them, yet he also had another idiosyncrasy. To hide some long-suffered wound, the right side of his face was hidden beneath a Phantom of the Opera masque, painted in oils so as to match exactly the left-hand side which was tigered-up in facepaints. Linking both sides was a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles -complete working class antiquity.

"Where _are_ you supposed to be?"

His voice was gravelly, pinched, the air in his throat having to contend with both damaged vocal chords and a subconscious desire to never draw the living side of his lips too much wider than the masque. No eye contact was made.

Again, the prisoner was prompted. "People don't just fall from blimps".

"I did. That's just the thing!", Ashcroft's warmth and breeziness fought to convince, in any case, assuming that he even _needed_ to tell them the truth, and he wasn't just being toyed with. "There was an idiot who pretended to've sent a baby over the side of the railing, and when the mother went mental, I had to save her from falling. But then I fell myself -it was an accident!"

He wanted to get up. He was too sacred. Eye-contact or no, there was an impression that he was being scrutinized by a highly savvy urban soldier. By now the glare of the floodlights had become tolerable, the Tiger Leader starkly delineated.

Croakily, "'Peppa', you called the mother. Were you in love with her?"

"No", said Ashcroft, confused. He really wasn't.

"The idiot who pretended to have thrown the baby -what was his name?"

All the while trying to figure where it might be going, he creased his face. "Nathan".

Said the Tiger Leader, "You paused, then, before you said 'Nathan'. Are you sure that was his name?"

"Yes, one hundred percent".

"If you-", the damaged man rolled his dry lips, "if you were the one who pretended to have thrown the baby, if you'd been in love with the girl, if you'd had a nervous breakdown -it would be fine. We wouldn't judge you. Everyone here is scarred".

At last a narrow band of eye-contact was given. Ashcroft felt accepted enough to persist with the truth. "No, you see, there really _was _an idiot. He's well-known for victimizing this girl. I was just in the right place at the right time".

Inside the Tiger Leader, Ashcroft saw, was a darkness. Not the theatrical darkness of a psychiatric or a hedonist monster -but real darkness. There was weariness, the measured head-tilts that came from too much inner life.

"All of the Tiger Men here arrived once, just like you. All of them had tried to commit suicide. There is no shame in learning -that there is a new way of living".

"I'm not suicidal", Ashcroft breathed sharply. "I wouldn't say I'm happy, but these days who is? Chris Evans? Lilly Allen?"

Japery? Unrequited. Instead came horror. The leader walked a few paces to the side and simultaneously, all the more militant-looking Tiger People fixed him in machine gun sights. In an eerie, split-second premonition, in perfect clarity, he felt hundreds of ice-cold bullets sinking into the smalls of his body.

"I don't believe -that you fell from a blimp while trying to save a woman", was the Leader's simple, toneless report. "I think -you were sent here by the government to infiltrate us".

"But-", Ashcroft winced heavily, "-if they know you recruit people who try to commit suicide, why wouldn't they just send someone who, you know, was pretending to be suicidal?"

The pathos-faced Tiger Man tilted his head at the soft-tiled ground. He took a few breaths and manipulated his aching mouth, perhaps wondering how best to sum up his ethos before allowing the others to shoot.

"They've tried -before. To infiltrate us. It's too hard for the bourgeois to imitate sorrow, and then gratitude -at the relief we provide".

"So you're just going to shoot me?"

In a voice unwavering and genuine, "I'm sorry".

"But you can't shoot me", he tried for a crease-smile, "it's Christmas, you know?"

Within the gathering, a few feet shuffled. Mostly there was a subtle sneering that was sharp, perhaps purely psychic.

The Leader. "Of all the ways you could -", he gave a gravelly 'hmmph', "-_-beg us _to spare your life, do you really think the best way is to invoke the name of our mortal enemy?"

"Jesus?", Ashcroft accidentally smiled. "But look, this is what I keep saying: you know that probably wasn't Jesus who defeated your people in Newecap? It was just some geek in a virtual reality helmet somewhere, doing some fancy programming".

Insisted the Tiger Leader, "But people thought he was Jesus. _He_ thought he was Jesus, having the nerve to declare war on us".

"So what?", it amazed him, the casualness in his voice. 'So what?', as if to a drunken traffic warden. From nowhere, he remembered the words of Barbara Kidmano RE Christmas. "The real Jesus was all about peace, and who cares about a virtual reality world, anyway? It's Christmas, right? It's not even Jesus knocking over all the money lenders, it's just Jesus as a _baby_, and the Three Wise Men, Frankie Goes to Hollywood -the sense of peace, everywhere".

"We've all been misrepresented", concluded the Leader. "The Tiger Men are inherently peaceful. But we're in a mire, surrounded on one side -by the fundamentalists of our own religion -and on the other, by the paranoid, militant Godless of your own society".

Was progress towards peace being made? The gun muzzles didn't waver a millimetre. If anything, the sensation on Ashcroft's hackles told that they were being hitched higher with fingers getting itchy. The Leader roved his ever-downcast eyes around the edge of a small table. In a way, he was numb, burnt out.

"It's a shame, that it has to end -like this. A few days from now, we're set to cease our interceptions of the anti-suicide transporters. I had hoped we'd be brought one last convert".

"Well look-"

Ashcroft found himself giving his usual 'last-sane-man-in-the-world' gasp, the one no one ever seemed to notice. His editor, 'Ned, fancy a trip to the moon behind Bon Deglof's stupid, sanctimonious face, and how many starving Ethiopians would the price of his ticket save?' (last-sane-man-in-the-world gasp). Apricot Woodbury, 'Would you like a job in advertising? Would you like to fall in with the worst trendy in the world, a man who thinks it's clever and imaginative to pretend to be a terrorist by waving a Transformer around?' (last-sane-man-in-the-world gasp).

To his surprise, this time the expression was recognized and latched onto by the Tiger Leader, who listened intently. "I don't know about becoming a convert. I'm too hooked in to my bad habits, you know? I'm too undisciplined. Plus, would I be allowed to turn left whenever I wanted?"

"The warning about the decadence of turning left is based on a deeply-debated quatrain of our holy book. Those who see it -as a dictate, set in stone, are usually fundamentalists. We are good people. We pray three times a day. We read our holy book, which is beautiful, a thing of grace. We never eat food prepared by more than one living soul. Apart from this, we are simply quiet, humble, happy".

When did it happen, that Ashcroft started to believe him? He looked into the Leader's eyes. Feeling like a bizarrely wise Prince Philip, staring into the crowd of Tiger Men who'd turned out to meet him on a lackluster winter morning. Never making significant eye contact because of the feeling of unworthiness; still managing to absorb every _nuance_. Slowly the heavy-set men and sparky-eyed women seemed to accept him.

It had been five or six minutes since he'd taken to his feet, tho the tingles of the sudden transporter effect lingered on. One Tiger Man draped a lovely warm blanket around his shoulders. A Tiger Man in a wheelchair delivered him a cup of Hot Bovril. Now he became acquainted with his surroundings, discovering the Tiger Lair was a lot less expansive than he'd first thought. The ground was as giddily flat and magnetic as ever, yet it was comparatively small, less then twenty feet across. A little way beyond the hemispherical doorway, a loud, intent chugging could be heard. Generators? Clever mechanisms of sustaining life in a survivalist stronghold.

Live or die, it was to be a new world, and Ashcroft felt a strange stirring to come clean. "In my life, I guess I've been a bit lazy sometimes, yeah? Does that make a difference?"

"No", graveled the Leader.

Ashcroft continued, "Actually, my niece can help you. She's a right-on, power-to-the-little-guy type. She writes books and makes documentaries. And this is a good story you've got to admit; Tiger Men, helping people who tried to commit suicide? That's crazy-interesting. People loved The Imposter, right? It's got the same vibe".

"We don't covet popularity among the masses", warned the Tiger Leader.

"It can't hurt, though, can it?"

Musing, the Leader paced among his men, every one of whom chewed their lips and fixed Ashcroft with vibrant eyes. A 'moment' came.

"Where has your niece had her work published?"

"I don't know", Ashcroft laugh-cringed. "As far I know - dunno. She said she had a TV commission from RT or summut. But that's not the point. She's crazily committed to breaking big, deep stories, yeah?"

"Committed how? Financially?"

"She talks to idiots".

At their heads, apart from the distant chugging, there was an impassive silence which suggested the world beyond their walls was solid, impenetrable. The ceiling was slightly rounded, too. A funny place. Everyone's on holiday.

Crimping his lips, "Do you believe in God, Mister Ashcroft?"

"I believe in just", Ned suddenly felt confident enough to frown, flash his tiny eyes incredulously, "living a quiet life!"

Now the chugging braced everyone. The silence roared mystically. "You can -return to the world of Men. I'll send with you two Tiger Men. My daughter has been impatient to see a greater part of the world. If either you or your niece wish to broker understanding between our two civilizations -go with impunity".

_By Appointment to the Royal Danish Court._

"Have you ever been to the Forest of Dean?"

It suddenly transpired that their mysterious interception-point was actually a submerged plane a hectare out into the Bristol Channel. A decade ago, rugged and ingenious Tiger Men had fed down access arms and sured-up the fuselage with bio-engineered coral, so making a perfect transporter cache. The plane, originally, had been a huge, twenty-first century air-hauler. Climbing a few shallow steps, Ashcroft was delivered to an even grander warehouse-fuselage, the curved ceiling majestically sand-coloured, wholly free of murk. To his astonishment, once more, there were thoughts of Christmas, _big-time_. He'd got used to seeing the festive colours of Coruscant. The cargo plane was just as vibrant somehow -yes, the pleasant orange heads of the Tiger Men, all spaced out like baubles or Christmas fruits.

The blonde-tinted Tiger Man to his right was talkative. The girl, the daughter of the Leader, less so. She was vibrant, energetic. As most 2235 people conjured holographic computer screens from thin air, she created ribbons of coloured lights which she swirled around like an absent-minded cheerleader. Between them all, the plasticky, shadowy Leader was the pleasant side of ambient.

They arrived at a transporter platform stacked high near the uppermost bulkhead.

"From here, the three of you will be beamed back to the city. To remain -unobserved, we usually use a disused multistory hovercar park -a block clear from the Science Citadel".

Unobserved, I see; beside a mirror, the two youthful Tiger People stripped down and changed clothes. The man sported a crisp shirt and black teflons. The girl, in a tiny bra that was more about fashion than practicality, or even sexiness, donned a lycra Tigs McGee vest, neon pink and net frills. Ashcroft had been sure that there must be further lairs to come, but apparently not. A dark purple parka and she was done.

Next, they set about Japonesquing off their tiger make-up. He noted, towards their necks, certain flexes of the orange-and-black stripes flatly refused to shift; tattoos, deceptively simple, majestic all the same.

"Is there any particular way we have to act?", asked the blonde-haired Tiger Man of Ned.

"Well, it's Christmas, so the idea is to, I dunno, promote peace, be happy and", he punched the air, " -kinda drunken! Yeah!"

"We're very resistant to alcohol", was the dampener placed by The Leader.

The three departees gravitated onto their transporter nodes. Ashcroft gently worried that it was simply a cunning-methodical spy maneuver where he'd be killed by the dematerialisation while the other two were unscathed. Latterly, though, he was confident -no Hollywood thriller dramatics today. All the same, there had to be give-and-take.

Stirring up a cool, sardonic tone to skim the unpleasantness -chk-a-chk-a, "Before we all set out, uh, there's one more thing I need to confess!"

The Leader stared at him, neither the living or the plastic eye blinking. Mesmerizing; trying to figure out when the mystic synchronicity would be broken. He'd obviously trained himself to blink as little as possible through a zen-like economy. Unfortunately, from a young age, Ashcroft had trained himself to stare and stare at anything which horrified him; the only thing which might save them at all was a daydream about D'arcy Wretzky. But D'arcy was sticking to the sidelines as ever.

"Just lately I've accidentally had an idiot come into my social orbit. He's a guy, an idiot, who's maybe the enemy of the Tiger Men? He's done a little bit of trash talk, said a lot of jive about you guys. I mean, if you wanted to kill him, that'd be fine with me, but he's pretty attached to my niece-"

Taking shallow breaths, still gruff, "What's his name?"

"Nathan Madlala", said Ned sharply.

"Nathan Madlala is known to us", was the Leader's dispassionate statement. "Some might say he's a thorn".

"You guys shot him in the head for turning left?"

"Libra Colony, in 2225. The boy was travelling alone through the Little Brown Desert, we presumed to a music concert being held in a city to the North. His hover skif broke down and he was stranded in a remote pass. When the Tiger Men found him, he was severely dehydrated and heat-stricken. As they tried to soothe him, in his delirious state, he saw them as a threat. Snatched up one of their phasers and tried to wield it. It was a -Type II lozenge. He held it the wrong way round. Shot himself in the head. The detachment of Tiger Men delivered him to the nearest hospital and paid for his treatment".

Ashcroft's face twitched.

"In any case, it is the human privilege to lie, betray, show ingratitude. Perhaps, in your life, you will be more fortunate. Farewell".

The warm, magnified swishing of tinsel energy swept across his body and carried him hundreds of miles. His thoughts took him even further; the idea of bringing low arch-idiot Nathan Madlala. He'd always liked Christmas Presents other than socks.

A crazy-hasty refocusing of his eyes made the cusp of the car park blink from yellow to dusk-grey. The blonde-haired Tiger Man looked keenly at the towering city street. His eyes moved through the hot-stepping crowd, smiling freshly.

_"Everyone knows the moon is roquefort! I've come here to talk about Colonel Fell_!"

Excited men are usually pretty easy to deal with, except, "Colonel Fell? Who is that? Is that gonna be my code name?"

"No, it's nothing. just something from a film I like".

The Tiger Girl spoke up. To Ashcroft's surprise, unlike her very refined father, she had an East Coast American accent. Sophisto. "Is there anywhere I can get a milkshake, gluten free? Eukaryote free? Which way are we even going? This city has too much happening on the left. It's like trying to read Grazia by holding it up to a mirror, even!"

Ashcroft drew his fingers apart and brought up a holoscreen. "Contact Kal-Nez Ashcroft". The connection came bumpily to life and his great grand niece stared at him sharply.

"Where have you been, Ned, I've been worried sick! We rang round all the hospitals and Samaritans centres in the city!"

Attitude. Just swing past it. "Yeah. The anti-suicide beamer must've spanged out. It set me down a long way shy of the city. But everything's fine. I'll explain later. Listen, is Madlala still with you?"

"He's here", Kal-Nez peered behind. Ashcroft followed her line of vision and witnessed the man-child leaning against a bus stop, horrifying a seething boxing club owner with the sight of his moving T-shirt -porno involving a man in a top hat and a robot lady exoskeleton made of burning cash. The boxing promoter was offended. His young son smiled tentatively.

"Just -meet me back at your place. Make sure Madlala goes with. Don't let him out of your sight".

"What are you up to, Ned?", demanded Kal-Nez, no warmth whatsoever.

"For you? The biggest human interest story this country has ever seen. For me? Sweet vindication! Ha-ha!"

"Ned!"

After he made the gesture to hang up, he turned confidently to his own private Tiger Men. "Shall we groove on down to Funky Town?"

Time was marching on in Coruscant. It was November now, and even in a land of perpetual Christmas, they'd waited as late as possible to roll out the big guns. Between buildings, off in a grubby square of granite grit, some council men and private contractors were hauling up a fifty foot Triffid, green painted, coiled up in lights, the tip of the vast stinger replaced with a shining star.

Further pieces of urban Christmas magic included two real, live reindeers which had been brought into a homeless compound by charity workers for the fascination of the local tramps. They blinked their dirty eyes and petted the mighty creatures. They took swigs of their tomato soup and stared delightedly at the huge, soft noses, the sprightly eyes, the felt-covered antlers.

As the Ashcroft party passed by, the blonde Tiger Man was also deeply enthralled. He was drawn across from a sharp bend in the street, enticed alongside the mesh fence until he was one with the dispossessed. The way he smiled at the homeless and their new pets was undeniably magical; the lit-up eyes and the crack in his mouth. When a puffa-wearing charity member passed by with a bucket, he casually put in a thick roll of notes, what Ashcroft took to be Tiger Man petty cash.

"I think I'll stay here for a while", he said.

The abruptly thoughtful edge in his voice told Ashcroft it was useless to try and urge him away again. With the remaining Tiger en toe, he made his way through the majestic streets towards the domain of Nathan Madlala. Burning green, flashing neon holographic flight routes, the futuristic traffic directors that were suspended on the skyscrapers never stopped for a second. Even when a trendy nodded proudly and cried, 'Old Father Time!' -the idiocy was swallowed up in teeming, colourful heavens. Peaceful.

Buzzing the intercom of Holocaustic Denier HQ, the way it was usually scream-answered immediately, proved that no one was home. He looked around the dark alleyway perimeter for any means of entrance. A grubby alcove offered an ancient frosted window that looked in on the stairwell nook. Ashcroft ran his fingers along the practically nonexistent silicate and popped the pane of glass free.

"Uh, what are you doing?"

The Tiger Girl's tone was kind of twisty; Ashcroft couldn't figure out if she meant, 'What are you doing, breaking and entering?' or 'What are you doing wasting my time?' -in the manner of a precocious sixth form St Trinians.

"I lost my keys and I'm worried my VCR might accidentally record Michael Parkinson".

She didn't care, and in any case she followed him with aplomb, hanging back as he switched on the lights, rubbed his hands, laughed like a bookie. She removed her parka to reveal once more that strange, lycra bodytop the colour of John Snow's socks. Kelly Osbourne 2235?

"Is there anything to eat? I'm so hungry it's like climaxing".

Ashcroft pointed out the fridge. "If there's any spirits in there, be sure to pour me a glass!"

"Celebrating?"

"Yes indeed, kemosabe"

"You're getting your hair cut?"

Ashcroft winced a little, though still he smiled. "Dissolving of the King of the Idiots".

The Tiger Girl sneered slightly and set to work mixing a bottle of vodka with a fudge-and-pomegranate yoghurt. Ashcroft activated the wall TV and commanded it to play Nathan's revolutionary 'turning left' video. In time, he gestured helplessly.

"How do I do a left click?"

"A what?"

"How do I get all the information about this file?"

"Just _ask _it, dummy", said the girl.

Ashcroft cleared his throat and enquired whether the video was master footage or a copy. He asked when it had been created and by whom.

"_June, 2225. Nathan Madlala_", reported Majel Barret.

Ashcroft hissed yes and punched the air in abject victory. June -a full two months after the date which Madlala boasted to the world he'd been shot in the head. Further clues were found by watching the music video very, very carefully; when the yoof Nathan crept past an empty administrative block, Ashcroft had the intuition to zoom in ala Bladerunner. It was an area of screen no more than a dozen pixels across, but thanks to 2235 technology, a whole extra room was conjured. Rupert Bear and co. balancing on the disintegrating walls of a castle while just below, a heard of energetic-faced wild boar zoomed through the foliage. The page of a calendar. Again, June.

And so, at the centre of the web, he waited, more than ready for the showdown. There was a low table with a good vantage point of the door; the reference now was Ken Foree slumped down with his tiny gun, glaring insanely at the attic trapdoor just waiting for the stream of monsters. Admittedly, it had been a long day, in a way more arduous than his first arrival in 2235. Slashing around like Jackson Pollock swirls: visions of the decoy baby attached to the miniblimp. The Tiger Men as strange coloured shadows. But mainly Nathan Madlala. It was a Dreyfus and Clouseau thing. But Clouseau if he posed a genuine threat to sane life everywhere. Beneath his chin on the pigsty desk were steelbook blanks, which the man-child had sprayed with his own stencils as a limited edition blu-ray release of 'Peppa Punk'd' Season 2. The white paint, still wet, glistened like a horrible sticky ocean. Not that he dwelt on it. Commissioner Dreyfus, he blinked. Within a few moments he was lost in sleep.

What woke him to start with was the sensation of Kal-Nes beating him on the arm and cursing.

Words?

"Yeah! Thanks for waking up, Ned. God! Do you know how worried I was about you? And now I found you were just walking the streets with a 3 AM girl!"

"She's not a 3 AM girl", he mumbled testily. "She's a Tiger Men Princess".

"God, Ned!"

What woke him secondarily and stretched his eyes wide was the fact that they were no longer in Nathan Madlala's attic-den. To his extreme left was a shouty Japanese pin-stripe. To his right was a younger Japanese business man far more relaxed, in fact smiling. Here was the corporate conference desk of some big multinational, and a bawdy, sassy intruder was dancing wildly on the table top. A security guard who looked like every kind of WWII matinee Jap tried desperately to remove her, only to discover she was an intangible hologram. Or, from the perspective of those in the West, vice-versa. The intrusion came from anti-capitalists having invaded their reality by air-prisming satellite projectors. Tiny flying cameras filmed the sexy-political mischief from all angles.

But the Tiger Princess -why would she be dancing like this? Why would she be acting like Charlie Gilmour? Ashscroft knew she had her faults just like any modern thirty-something, but he'd always suspected that deep down she was a good girl.

Then he saw. Dancing at her shoulder in the style of Kid n' Play - Nathan Madlala. They moved together like choreographed lovers, Ashcroft no less appalled than the elderly Japanese business men with their gaunt, trustworthy mouths fallen low.

Down they jacked onto the table-top like 2-Unlimited-from-Hell, he speaking like Mr C from The Shamen over beep musak hateful, "-2235! The new Axis of Evil, multi-national goons sitting in their ivory towers, while all your children glower. Muck your tears so good, muck your _fears_ so good, what you say to them, 'Muck you, Bilderberg!"

"I'm Dave Bikinus", chimed in the Tiger Princess. "And I'm with The People. I'm with freedom, and I'm with Nathan Madlala. Peace and mucking!"

And with that the locale of the Japanese boardroom dissolved back to Madlala's trendy-den. Ashcroft gently rubbed his face as he realized everything in the world was going wrong.

"Genius, Ned! That is gonna get so many hits!", was Nathan's first, gasping comment.

Said the Tiger Girl Dave, "Old F T, you're truly the blind data match-maika. I've always wanted to meet the Holocaustic Denier! Didn't even know you knew him!"

"Your dad-", through his wincing, Ashcroft's voice came hushed and sinister. "Your dad is like Ayatollah Khomeini -how would you even be aware of who _this_ guy is? Why would you want to meet him? He's an idiot".

In her affected American accent, "The Holocaustic Denier is the underground hero of Coruscant, and I'm like_, literally _underground, so I'd _doubly _know who he is?"

"The flame-snatch speaks true", Madlala squared up to her, angled his pelvis to the air around her waist. "Where d'you meet such a fine fox-fillet yourself, Nedders?"

"Yeah", said Kal-Nez icily. She folded her arms and confronted her great-uncle-brother. "I thought you were all about helping me research my book, but now it looks like it all came in second to your stupid, trendy socializing!"

A strange moment of transcendence came. Ashcroft squeezed his giant hands over Kal-Nez' shoulders and pulled her around to speak conspiratorially. Part of him sensed: it was one of those mind-bending moments in Fawlty Towers where Sybil or Polly is haranguing Basil, and he bodily shakes them, promises that there's a seamless, logical explanation for his rasping hysteria. Something beyond the petty arguments. An Altar of Truth, nothing less.

"Listen, right? I've got proof that he's an idiot. All I have to do is put it on his own little website and the whole world will see".

Kal-Nez frowned all the same. "I don't care if he's an idiot. All I care about is my book, Ned!"

"But listen", Ned breezed, "I also met the King of the Tiger Men. He said he'd give you exclusive rights to write the story of how they've secretly been recruiting new members by intercepting the anti-suicide transporters and helping people who'd otherwise do themselves in. Thousands of them!"

"_What_?"

"I know, _right_?", beamed Ashcroft. "They'll give you a Pulitzer. They'll make you the human interest queen! All _I _want is the chance to bring this idiot low".

Kal-Nez managed to speak simultaneously with gritted teeth and under her breath, "You're a complete fool, Ned. Can't you see that they're telling you whatever you want to hear just so you'll get them close to Nathan? Give them another chance to shoot him in the head?"

"No way", said Ashcroft in a bright voice. "He may be like a beetle-browed old Shah, but the Tiger King, he's completely open-hearted".

"_Are you sure_?"

"_Yeah_", said Ashcroft, his quiet tone giving him away to a thirty or forty percent deficit.

When his great grandniece folded her arms and chewed her cheeks, Ashcroft was compelled to gesture into a back room. "Come on". She followed him easily enough, but a new problem came in that there was no way of locking the door. He looked around the cluttered recesses for something to prop between the edge of the shelving and the handle, and the only thing remotely long enough was a neon placard reading, 'MUFF SALE, 200 yrds'.

The door reasonably secured, Ashcroft tried to bring up a holoscreen using his fingers, though he consistently made a hash. Kal-Nez, magnanimously, did the job for him and, after a curt '_thankyou_', he recited the contact number which the Leader had gifted him.

And wasn't Kal-Nez absolutely business-like and invigorating when the vision of the Tiger Leader materialized before her. She was bold. The light from the hologram illuminated the storeroom in soft edges, very Christmassy yet also claustrophobic.

"Sir, I'm Kal-Nez Ashcroft, Ned's grandniece. He was boasting to me that you might like to give me a few interviews about the recent work of the Tiger Men?"

"I'm pleased to talk to you", said the Leader, as gruff as ever. It felt eerie to be speaking to him unsolicited. But also it felt like progress. "An interview -with a mind to a publishable book. I think it would be an interesting exchange".

"Ned tells me you've been doing imaginative things with the city transporter network?"

"_Imaginative_", intoned the ravaged man. "Is a -good word. Diplomatic. Tell me, Kal-Nez, am I the first Tiger Man you've spoken to?"

"Actually, yes, sir. You are".

"There's no need to feel -wary".

"OK. Well, I think what I'd ask you first; where do you stand on the right of young Tiger People to turn left? It's a hot topic, but I think we should start with the most controversial things then work outwards. Get people's attention-"

Said the Leader, "I understand. My -opinion about the young having the right to turn left, I would hope -is a progressive one. Our doctrine of using only right-turns during the formative years is a matter of commitment to God, rather than a flourish of domination by our Leaders, as has been publicized by the media. The misinterpretation is forgivable. If necessary, we are able to forgive endlessly. Kal-Nez -a good question to ask, of those who purport to believe in anything bigger than their own earthly lives -what would they be willing to give up to demonstrate that belief?"

"Why should they have to give up anything?", Kal-Nez responded cleverly.

"To prove that they are determined. More than an animal".

"But sir, you're the one dressed as a tiger".

At which point, the Leader gave a sharp laugh. The shiny smoothness of the skin beneath his living eye creased into something much like a smile. Ashcroft wondered if, indeed, he might be the blind data match-maika after all.

Then his blood froze.

Beneath the crack of the door, the opened-out wire of a coat-hanger was snaking inwards to dislodge the barricade. Before he could stamp on it or reinforce the door, Madlala and the Princess had made a drunken entrance.

The girl, "Sorry, guys! Thought you were probably in here doing the -", she made a suave little 'cocaine' gesture. Then, moving directly into the fuzzy blue light, "Hey, Daddy!"

Now Ashcroft's mind somersaulted with frightening possibilities. Foremost was a memory of that certain Galactica episode where it'd been necessary to assassinate a tyrannical fellow Battlestar commander. To absolve the girl-assassin of responsibility, Adama had commanded her to fire the gun only when she heard his voice over the phone.

He hitched his breath and waited. Madlala twirled his head like a ball-on-a-rope. The Tiger Chief stared hypnotically. Glancing across at the reflective edge of a work table, Ashcroft saw for the first time that, on falling asleep, he'd accidentally lolled his head onto one of the idiot's stencil trays and got his hair matted with paint.

"Hoarding a party line, slag-consumers? Babestation don't start till eleven", swaggered Madlala. Curiously, even when his eyes connected with the Tiger Man, he was strangely calm. "Or 'Well-well, Mr Anderson' mindfreak, yeah? A distinguished guest?"

"Daddy, this is my new friend-with-benefits Nathan", the Princess explained. "Old Father Ashcroft hooked us _right_ up".

"That's not true", gabbled Ned, desperately trying to separate himself from the murder which was happening -now? Now? Now?

Madlala dug away at his own grave. "Friend-with-benefits? Nah, I wouldn't bogart nuffing from the state. She's probably just talking about m' c-k".

Much to Ashcroft's eternal shock, nee fascination, the Tiger Leader wasn't in the least outraged. He fixed Nathan with a prim, side-long glare. "You. You have no guile. I like that. Tell me, where does it come from?"

"It's like spermatozoa, or male aerobics yellers", fronted Madlala. "Many apply, few succeed. Nathan Madlala. Freeform urban mind-Sanchez".

"I've heard the name", said the Leader indulgently.

"You're actually Tiger Men?"

"Traditionally", said the older man, "we would be enemies".

Except where jarring violence should be erupting at any moment, the man-child Madlala smiled giddily. "_Well _antiheroic team-up".

"The world is turned on its head", confirmed the Leader.

And Ashcroft waited. He waited through the hours and half hours as the four of them got to know each other. It was an illusion of Truth and Reconciliation, somehow more tangible than any of the ugly holograms which ruled 2235, more tangible still than the weirdo religious cold-war which had floated around for decades. Ashcroft waited. A strange, protracted period staring through the brittle window at the blue-tinted snow which had come from nowhere, occasionally the laughter of Kal-Nez or the sensation of Madlala Bez-dancing to give a peaceful background buzz.

In the following days, they got together socially. Ashcroft waited. He envisioned Madlala being abducted at some point and brainwashed into a persona that recanted his previous gobsh-ery. At a cafe, he drinking murderous energy drink, the Tiger Leader drinking tap-water, it seemed as if they were already at the stage of a prospective son-in-law seeking solace with his fiancée's dad. But isn't that the way it goes? The idiots ingratiate themselves. It's a kind of smarmy evolution, and C3PO Richard Dawkins wearing a giant bow-tie that covers his peek-a-boo bra. Ashcroft waited. He wondered, as he sat in the back room of Kal-Nez' apartment, the latest Tiger Men interview running on -it was Christmas Eve, though he used the day purely to look through job listing websites. He fancied being a supermarket delivery driver and put a reasonable effort into filling out the aptitude test. Just lie about being able to fly a hover-car. Frequently, though, a distraction came in the small Man United pocket watch which sat at his elbow. It had been a thankyou gift from Peppa for saving her life. Why Man United? He assumed because it was an antique from his own time, and by the law of averages or perhaps just absence making the heart grow fonder, she probably thought he _loved _the goons of Ferguson.

Christmas Day was the first day in weeks that Kal-Nez didn't have a protracted interview with the Tiger Leader. Instead, they played Jenga and ate a traditional roast dinner. Early evening entertainment included Madlala gathering them all around a monitor, the view from which, one of his graffiti leopards going out into the city nightscape by remote control, spraying weird slogans before darting off into the night. Weirdly, the Tiger Leader was engrossed by this. The statue of Nigel Farage in Paternoster Square. Between his outstretched arms, Madlala sprayed the word 'MERRY' in huge fifty-point letters. In smaller thirty-five-point, across the statue's crotch, '_Christmas'. _

Why would the mischief of an idiot man-child have such a uniting effect on the religiously placid? Ned tried to understand. Perhaps it was just the way the world was ending, and it was fine, because it was Christmas time and everything was peaceful?

On Boxing Day, Ashcroft, Kal-Nez, Dave and Madlala went to a rave.

And then on New Year's Day, Madlala arrived at Television Centre as guest of honour for the annual Jeremy Vine 'What Makes Us Human?' lecture. Partly-rapping, partly-speaking the preamble, Madlala brought forth a couple of laughs when he finally made his suggestion of the single achievement which makes human beings unique: Twerking. Unfortunately, there were no more laughs beyond hour one of his lecture, or hour two, or hour three. The handfulls of promotional Nathan Madlala Pez dispensers which he threw into the crowd, each loaded up with Benzo Fury tabs, did not wipe the disdain from the audience. They watched their Rome burn.

Ashcroft hung at the back, his cringe as pronounced as an extra limb, thinking only, _'They watched their Rome burn_'. The free soiree of Dutch beer, however, was very much appreciated; in time it helped moderate everything. He told himself that one day, perhaps as early as six months from now, Kal-Nez would have finished her association with the Tiger Men and he'd at last be free of Madlala's orbit. The idiots might go on to destroy civilization, but surely, somewhere, the world would carry on being peaceful?

By the time full drunkenness was achieved, Nathan had been joined on stage by the Cold Lazarused head of Russell Brand, crying revolution, love, peace. Ashcroft gobbled his beer and narrowly sustained the balancing act.


End file.
